Another Kind of Magic
by Godricgal
Summary: Something magical has been brewing between Remus and Tonks all summer long. But what happens when an Order assignment requires them to do things the Muggle way? Co-written with MrsTater. Complete!
1. Prologue

**Author's Notes**: This is the first instalment of a fic that is a collaboration with **MrsTater** as a birthday gift for our dear friend **Gilpin**. We'll be posting the rest over the next week or so, so please keep an eye out! We hope you enjoy the fic. :)

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**Prologue**

The Order of the Phoenix were filing out of number twelve, Grimmauld Place as Tonks approached the austere row of townhouses, which looked impossibly gloomy as the sinking late summer sun cast long shadows across the patchy, dry grass in the square, sere from neglect and the unrelenting summer drought.

"Crap!" she spat as Snape descended the front steps, his black eyes beady, reflecting the light from the lamp across the street, as he sneered down his nose at her. "I've missed the whole meeting, then?"

"Clearly," Snape replied, his lip curling in an ugly approximation of a smile. "Or did you think I was popping out for a Victoria sponge to serve up with tea?"

"Obviously not," Tonks scoffed. "Molly would never let us eat second-rate cake. Bought from a shop? I should think not!"

"You got a problem wif shop cake?" asked Mundungus Fletcher, his face almost completely hidden in a noxious cloud of pipe smoke. "I filched one jus' las' week wot was--"

"Rock cake?" Hagrid looked twice as large as usual lumbering down the steps behind the squat Dung. "You did like to pop in my place fer a rock cake now and then when you were at Hogwarts, didn't yer, Tonks? All righ', I'll bring a batch next week. A partin' gift, as me an' Maxime finished our Muggle trainin' and'll be off soon fer the giants."

His huge hand came down on Tonks' head, thoroughly mangling her jaunty lime green spikes in his attempt to rustle her hair affectionately. Snape's mocking eyes flashed on Tonks before he Disapparated.

Keen not to have to pass comment on either Dung's shifty ways or the quality of Hagrid's rock cakes, Tonks took the steps two at a time and then turned back towards them.

"If ever there were a couple of us to draw attention to this place, it's you two," she said. "Even if you are somewhat obscured by that muck belching out of Dung's pipe. Better make yourselves scarce before Mad-Eye comes out and teaches you a thing or two about constant vigilance."

"Ri' y'are, Tonks. I'll be on me way." Hagrid pulled his enormous fur coat up to his ears, as though this would aid his undetected retreat from the square, then Disapparated with a _pop_ quite incongruous with his massive size. Dung followed, though the smoke from his pipe lingered, draped over the thick August air.

Turning to the door, Tonks started to find Remus leaning against the jamb, one hand casually tucked into his trouser pocket, a slight grin on his face and laughter in his eyes -- which were fixed on her, and apparently had been for some time. Her heartbeat accelerated, as she'd come to expect it to in his presence during the nearly two months since she'd been introduced to him; her hand flew self-consciously to twist her bedraggled hair back into spikes, and for the first time all day she questioned her choice in colour. But it would be painfully obvious if she changed it now, wouldn't it?

"Wotcher," she said, as confidently as she could manage from beneath the lime green locks -- not that much effort was required to sound cheerful about seeing Remus, but she didn't think she sounded _too_ keen; or if she did, Remus didn't seem to mind.

"Hello, Tonks." He straightened up, still smiling, and stepped back from the door to let her pass through. "I missed you at the meeting."

She promptly caught her foot on the blasted Troll-foot umbrella stand and saw the faded rug rushing up toward her nose with alarming speed. Scrunching her eyes closed, she shot her hands out in front of her and waited for the inevitable thump of knees and palms on floor...

It never came, though. Instead, a strong arm wrapped around her middle, and a steady, firm hand caught her arm, preventing her fall and then hauling her upright, onto her feet.

"Used up all your constant vigilance in an effort to make sure our less inconspicuous members weren't caught lurking around the square, did you?" Remus' voice rasped in her ear in the teasingly low pitch she'd noticed he seemed to reserve for her. "We're lucky to have you. Though of course, Dung and Hagrid both seem to be faring better with creatures at the moment."

"Excuse me?" Tonks spluttered. Remus had caught her off-guard. Falling she could handle, but being saved by a man who could more likely than not maintain cool as a cucumber composure whilst standing in a boiling cauldron full of bat fingers and Niffler testicles was really beyond her realm of expertise.

"Dung tells me he's managing very well with a shipment of frogs that have proven quite profitable to his business enterprises," Remus explained, removing his arm from around her -- to Tonks' disappointment -- but keeping a firm hold of her arm. "Hagrid's managed to charm the feisty Olympe Maxime, and they're both off to negotiate with big, unfriendly giants. And you, Nymphadora," he added with a twinkle in his eye, "have been foiled by a troll. A dead one, at that."

Flushing, Tonks looked away from Remus and pulled a face at the troll-foot. "Reckon we could send it along with Hagrid as a good luck charm?"

"You mean like rabbits' feet?"

"I don't know how much good it would do Hagrid, but it'd be the luckiest thing that's ever happened to me." Apart from being the lone witch in the Order with whom Remus flirted. Not that he had many options. "And don't call me Nymphadora," she added, out of habit, though her heart wasn't really in the reprimand. "What did I miss at the meeting?"

"Nothing much. Snape spat like a snake while Sirius growled like a dog; Dung smoked like a chimney while Molly fumed like a particularly aggressively bubbling potion; Hestia giggled like a third year on Euphoria Elixir...I could go on in a similar -- or should I say simile? -- fashion."

He looked at her with an expectant half-smile. The smug git. Tonks didn't want to give him the satisfaction. But she couldn't deny him, either.

"I don't know whether to tell you that was bloody brilliant, or to groan at a bloody awful pun."

"Also," Remus went on, more seriously, though still grinning like a schoolboy who was all too pleased with himself, "I had to lie like a rug to Mad-Eye when he cornered me to ask whether you and I had done our Muggle training yet. So I hope you're free Friday night, because that's when I told him we're down for."

"Are you telling me you've successfully circumvented the constant vigilance of the ultimate guru of the philosophy?" Tonks gave a low whistle to show she was impressed.

Remus' eyes glinted with mischievous amusement. "It would appear that way, yes."

"Merlin, you're good," she said. "Lucky for you and the chance of not being hexed to oblivion--"

"Which is a speciality of yours, I believe?"

"Yes, but I had a good teacher. Anyway, I am free this Friday."

Tonks tried not to let her smile falter, though she felt a distinct tug at her facial muscles which had nothing to do with morphing.

After the mission to rescue Harry from his aunt and uncle's house, Mad-Eye -- of all people -- had convinced Dumbledore that the Order weren't up to snuff in the Muggle stealth department. "Gawked at the Microthingumy and the Tellywhatsit like a lot of Muggle-born kids seeing Hogwarts for the first time." So, a training programme had been devised for the Order members to take it in turns -- in pairs -- to spend a weekend living as Muggles. Tonks had no problem with the prospect of the training itself; she rather liked the idea of roughing it without magic, seeing how the other half lived, how her own father had grown up.

And she'd scarcely believed her good luck when she'd found herself partnered with Remus. Until, that was, she'd allowed nerves to get the better of her. Aware as she was, that something, as yet indistinct and undefined, lay between them, a weekend alone together could surely be a gateway to a wonderful, more concrete state of affairs. But it would also be a weekend without her wand, when her awkward clumsiness could not be masked by her talent for magic, and he was the very last person in the world she wanted to make a fool of herself in front of. Excepting, perhaps, Snape, though for entirely different reasons. Remus made everything he did look so effortless, and pulled it off with real flair. Tonks was sure she was even more clumsy and awkward around him than around other people... The very idea made her feel exposed.

Sirius had been tasked with organising the day-to-day running of the mission, and she'd heard the stories he shared over a late night Butterbeer about what troubles the other pairs had run into during their Muggle weekends: of Arthur taking Molly out for a Sunday drive and getting pulled over by a policeman who gave him a ticket for some driving offence or other, which Arthur had framed for his office, an honest-to-Merlin Muggle traffic ticket; of Dedalus and Hestia testing out the television, finding a naughty programme, and being forced to watch it because they couldn't turn the device thing off again. It would be humiliating in the extreme to find herself the object of these late night gossips.

Even more unsettling, in some ways, was that she wouldn't be allowed to morph. While she wasn't one of those girls who put all her stock in physical appearance, there were certain aspects of her ability that bolstered her confidence considerably. Thus she'd found herself dreading her turn in the Muggle training, and had put it off as long as possible.

"Tonks?" Remus nudged her foot, and she looked up to see his forehead creased in concern. "You haven't thought of a prior engagement, have you? Only I'm desperately depending on you to spare me a weekend as a ferret if Mad-Eye finds out I lied to him."

"No, I'm not doing anything," Tonks said, because she couldn't put it off forever, and then she thought that she quite liked the idea of Remus depending on her and that taking on the role of co-conspirator with him against Mad-Eye was rather enticing, especially when the frown on his face faded into the expression of altogether too irresistible mischief that had first made her notice him, she flashed him a real grin that stretched her cheeks. "Or I wasn't, until I was required to make sure you remain bipedal this weekend. I mean really, at least a werewolf is big and manly. We can't have you dancing around as a poncy little ferret, can we?"

Remus' eyebrows hitched ever so slightly in inquiry above his quietly laughing eyes. Running one hand over his chin so that Tonks could hear the faint scratch of his stubble on his palm, he said, "Manly isn't one of the few positive attributes I've considered about being a werewolf, but who am I to argue with such a pretty and clever witch as yourself?"

"You'd have to be pretty bloody stupid," said Tonks, turning to go so he wouldn't see the redness of her face. "I'm a dab hand at ferret transfiguration myself."

His low chuckle seemed to caress her, and she shivered as she imagined she would at his actual touch. "Mad-Eye's protégée."

Tonks glanced back over her shoulder and wagged a finger at him. "And don't you forget it!"

"Never."

Remus' eyes held hers for a moment, and then her gaze drifted down to his lips as they parted to ask whether she was going to come in for a drink. Tempting as the offer was, Tonks thought she'd be better served to take advantage of having missed the meeting and have a rare early night; Merlin knew she needed all the help she could get if she wasn't going to make a hash of things with Remus, and she was knackered. Not that she expected to get much sleep for dreaming about what Friday might bring -- or having nightmares about it.

"I'll owl you with the details about Friday," Remus said with a nod, and then he added, almost tenderly, "Have a good sleep."

* * *

Remus watched Tonks round the corner of the row of houses, and startled slightly at the voice that sounded suddenly behind him:

"Well, well, Moony. _That_ was flirty."

He turned to see Sirius leaning against the mouldy papered wall, smirking, and shrugged at his old friend.

"Why shouldn't I indulge in a little harmless flirtation with a pretty girl?"

"Harmless? Twenty galleons says this little assignment will take the U out of your unresolved sexual tension."

"Harmless, yes. As in, of the variety that doesn't end up with said pretty girl in the evil clutches of werewolf paws," Remus replied lightly, hoping Sirius wouldn't see through the humour to the truth, which was quite the opposite of his words. But if anything was to happen with Tonks, Remus wanted it to do so on his terms, not because Sirius pushed either of them into it. "In any case, resolution would require a measure of interest from her, and that's about as likely as Dung's taking up residence in a monastery, so I'll see your twenty Galleons and raise you a bottle of Ogden's."

"Plenty of booze in some monasteries," Sirius rejoined, predictably distracted by the promise of Firewhisky -- thank Merlin. "I could see Dung quite happily whiling away the end of his days in a place that'll keep him topped to the brim with liquor and priceless silver, and provide a limited wardrobe to ease the stresses of daily fashion. So don't go betting beyond your means, old man," he said, jabbing Remus in the upper arm. "You may just live to regret it."

With that, he turned and headed back down to the kitchen, his robes flapping in a manner reminiscent of another colleague who'd attended Hogwarts in the 70s, though Remus would never dare to mention it.

Nor would he mention the undeniable fact that if Sirius did turn out to be correct, he would quite happily see the back of twenty galleons he didn't have for the sweetness of the reward.

_To be continued..._

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_**A/N:** Reviewers get to be Remus' personal Muggle tutor, where the lesson plan will be to give him a head start on the mission and help him impress Tonks. They must also help him to send a birthday card to __**Gilpin**__ for tomorrow._


	2. Part One

**Part One**

"Have you ever been in one of these before?" asked the young witch beside Remus. He looked down to see Tonks' dark, scrutinising Auror's eyes scanning warily over the vast glass-fronted building before them.

Remus shook his head. "Only once when I was a very small boy. With my Muggle gran. I don't really remember anything but being excited by the chocolate and sweets."

Tonks' mouth, set in a grim line, curved upward slightly as her face took on a nostalgic glow. "I stayed with my Muggle gran for a week once while my parents were on holiday. I didn't know how to control my morphing back then, and that week I'd been accidentally morphing into the people I saw on Gran's telly. So when Grandpa was out playing golf with his chums, Gran didn't have a choice but to take me shopping with her. She had to put sunglasses and a hat and scarf on me -- in the middle of July, mind -- because she said she didn't know how she'd explain if the little girl in her trolley suddenly turned into Captain Birds Eye."

As Remus chuckled, his own memory of the frozen foods mascot having been jarred by the name, Tonks went on, "I'd probably have been more likely to turn my hair the colour of his parrot's feathers, as grey hair isn't really my thing--"

Her words died abruptly as the colour drained from her pretty heart-shaped face and her features contorted into a mask of horror.

"Not that...I mean..." Tonks stammered. "It doesn't look good on me, I mean. On other people it's..." She appeared to cast around for the right word, while Remus looked on with amusement, unsure whether he wanted to help her out and put her out of her misery, or let her fester in her discomfort a little longer. He was just about to jump in, when she muttered something, which, had he not known better, he would have interpreted as 'downright sexy.'

"I beg your pardon?" he said, watching with curiosity as she flushed a shade of scarlet that he thought was all the more noticeable on her cheeks for being beneath brown, and plain -- well, plain for her, anyway -- hair.

"Distinguished," she said loudly and quickly, then turned, businesslike, back towards the shop front -- to hide her flushing face, Remus thought.

"That's what I thought you said." Remus draped his arm loosely around her shoulders and steered her towards the double doors that opened and closed with Muggle magic, giving her a few moments to compose herself and allow her colour to go down before she had to face him again.

"I realise," he said as they walked, "that grey hair is supposed to imply experience, but I'm afraid mine is as minimal as yours in the realm of Muggle shopping, so we're just going to have to have an adventure."

Chancing a glance down at Tonks, Remus was somewhat surprised to find her looking grave, the same deep frown on her face as she wore when on patrol. He struggled to suppress a grin, doubting she would appreciate him finding her focus on such an assignment as this rather cute.

Hopefully she wouldn't remain _too_ serious and focused, and allow Remus the opportunity to indulge in a bit of the sort of innocent flirtation that always did seem to occur all too naturally whenever he was with her. It was a positive sign that she hadn't shrugged his arm from around her shoulders. Did she notice, he wondered with a pleasant shift of his insides, how perfectly her height complimented his? She fitted so comfortably beneath his arm; his hand was just the breadth to curl over her shoulder.

As it turned out, the details of their physical proximity were not the ones Tonks was focused on at the moment.

"I'd prefer we made this the least bit adventurous we can get away with and still earn passing marks on the cooking part of the assignment," she said crisply. "Unless you've worked as a chef?"

Remus' hand fell to his side, and he turned away to select a trolley from the long line of them tucked together at the front of the supermarket.

"No." He tugged at the end trolley to free it -- but it didn't budge. "I agree, we ought to try something simple."

Another tug, and still no joy.

"What about spaghet--argh!"

Even with one hand on the end of one trolley and the other tugging at the handle of the other, and all his strength applied to the task of pulling them apart, he could not make them budge much more than an inch. "Is there a Sticking Spell on this?"

"Maybe." Tonks' voice was tight and pitched high with held-back laughter. Remus felt red-hot colour prickle up from his collar as she went on, "Only we can't do magic to find out."

He gave the trolley one last tug -- a last ditch effort for the salvation of his manhood; it lurched towards him and then stopped with a shimmering clash of metal against metal.

"Is your pound stuck, young man?"

Remus looked up to find a statuesque elderly lady with steel-grey hair, who reminded him uncomfortably of one of Tonks' disguises of choice, peering down at him through wire-rimmed glasses that were perched on the end of her long, thin nose.

"My what?" he asked, momentarily taken aback.

"Your pound." She tapped a solid-looking box, approximately the size and, apparently, the strength of one of Hagrid's cauldron cakes, though not quite as lumpy.

"My...?" Before Remus could utter the word _pound_, the old lady spoke over him.

"These new-fangled contraptions." Her voice was crisp with disapproval. "A poor show, indeed. I wrote to the manager of this very store just last week to voice my opinion that if they do feel the need to levy a deposit on a mere shopping trolley, one ought, at the very least, to expect it to be a hassle-free experience with the provision of properly functioning equipment!"

Remus tried to formulate an appropriate response, but found himself a cropper because he had not the least idea of what on earth the lady was talking about. Tonks wasn't making it any easier on him, still sniggering into her hand in his periphery.

Thankfully, he was saved when the old lady once again tapped her trolley briskly, and said, "I suggest you try another. There is little one can do to induce a Tesco's shopping trolley to behave once it has taken against the notion."

With a show of strength impressive for her apparent age, she swung her trolley around one hundred and eighty degrees and made for the entrance of the supermarket, those strange, magically opening doors parting to admit her, and she was gone.

"Are you any more the wiser for that encounter?" Tonks piped up from beside him, her tone laced with barely concealed glee.

"Not yet, but I have formulated a plan."

"What's that then?"

"We read the instructions," he replied, leaning in slightly to read the small print on the box that perched upon the handle of the trolley; he wondered how he'd failed to notice it before now. So much for constant vigilance.

"I always knew I was working with a genius," Tonks said.

"That's enough," he said. "I don't see you helping out much here."

"Oh, I'm having far too much fun for that. Remus Lupin, Hogwarts Professor of notable achievement, foiled by a big, Muggle, wheelie, metal basket."

"Use enough adjectives, Tonks?"

"That's what I'm talking about."

Remus looked up from the instructions to raise his eyebrow at her. "Hmm?"

"Professor. Notable and what not." Her eyes twinkled at him. "Have you figured out what we've got to do yet?"

"As a matter of fact, I have," he replied, straightening up and turning to face her. "Would you happen to have a pound coin about your person?"

Tonks dug deep in the pockets of her jeans; eventually, she produced a chunky-looking goldish coin and held it out to him between her thumb and forefinger.

He fiddled for a moment, inserting the coin into the coin-sized hole and the dangly chain thing (which, in fairness to him, he thought, had been hidden behind the square box thingy) in the dangly chain-sized hole and then, with a satisfying click, the trolley was released. He turned to Tonks, triumphant.

"I wouldn't look so smug if I were you," she said. "I was the one with the Muggle money, and anyway..." She was perusing a roll of parchment from beneath knitted brows -- their score sheet, ironically, the only magic they were allowed during this training exercise; its twin lay in the hands of Sirius, back at Grimmauld Place, reporting their progress, or lack thereof, in real time. "...out of a possible ten points for the 'Shopping Like Muggles' test, we've just lost one for 'Trolley Mastery'."

Having given up on the idea of scholastic perfectionism in fifth year Potions, Remus wouldn't have been troubled by a one-point deduction out of ten, but, as he was contending with a Hufflepuff, he thought it best to appear perturbed and inspired to do better.

"Maybe there's something we could do for extra marks," he suggested as he motioned for Tonks to enter the supermarket through the magical glass doors through which their elderly shopping trolley adviser had passed. But Tonks veered toward the trolley, instead.

"I'll push."

"No, it's okay, I've got it," Remus said, keeping a firm grip on the handlebar." You go on ahead."

"But I want to push."

Stifling a grin at the image of a much smaller Tonks, bundled up in scarves and hats and gloves, saying the same thing to her gran -- an image Remus was sure an Auror wouldn't appreciate him having -- he said, "But you'll have more freedom to explore the supermarket if you let me."

Her eyes narrowed on him. "You think I'm too clumsy, don't you? That I'll cause an accident."

"No!" Merlin, he hadn't meant her to take it that way at all. But he knew how self-conscious she was; how could he have been so thoughtless? "I'm just trying to be a gentleman!"

"But shopping is a woman's work!"

He caught the telltale glint in her dark eyes, and realised she'd only been winding him up. Well, two could play at that game. "Men are supposed to drive!"

"Old-fashioned Muggle thinking, Remus!"

"Unlike shopping being a job for a lady, I suppose, but in any case -- what do you think this weekend's for?"

"It's for us to learn how to live like Muggles, and you already did one trolley bit, so now I want my go."

Unceremoniously, she bumped Remus aside with her hip and took hold of the trolley, pushing it forward toward the door with a cheeky glance back at him. He hurried to catch up as the glass doors opened to swallow her into the building.

"So, what do you think we could do for those extra marks?" Tonks asked over her shoulder.

Remus looked around the expansive interior, the rows of tills lining the front, the aisles of food behind, and dragged a hand through his hair. "Perhaps something like actually finding our way around in here."

He glanced at Tonks, hoping to see his own feelings mirrored on her face so he might know he was not alone in his sense of bewilderment and intimidation at what ought to be a very basic task; but Tonks was stood with her hands on her hips, surveying Tesco's as she would the scene of a criminal investigation.

"You said something about spaghetti?" she asked, and Remus nodded. "Then we'll want to find the pasta aisle. I _think_ the sauce will be on the same one..."

She spoke in a perfunctory way, eyes trained on the shelves, which rather deflated Remus, who'd been encouraged by her earlier flirtatious demeanour. And yet, as he followed her as she pushed the shopping trolley, his attraction to her grew all the more, for he found her irresistible in professional mode -- even if her Auror skills were currently being channelled into grocery shopping.

It didn't hurt that he was getting a tantalizing view of swaying hips and her cute bottom, to which clung a pair of extremely flattering jeans that were a little frayed at the edges of the pockets and just revealed the tiniest hint of vivid colour which he realised, with a swell in his throat, must be her knickers.

"Ooof."

He also realized, slightly too late, that his attention had been so singularly focused on following that teasing band of colour like a beacon amid this sea of Muggle shoppers, that he'd failed to notice that Tonks had stopped. He'd crashed right into her so that she was now firmly sandwiched between his body and the shopping trolley before her.

"Tonks," he said in a rather dazed manner, owing, in no small part, to the feel of each of her curves pressed against him, "you stopped."

"So, apparently," Tonks replied, tipping her head back and resting it lightly on his shoulder so she could meet his eyes with her dark ones that twinkled mischievously, "did you."

Remus swallowed. There was that feeling again of a perfect fit: she really was _exactly_ the right height to rest her head on his shoulder; he could imagine, if she turned slightly, that her face would rest against the crook of his neck, her lips touching the pulse point, _just so_.

"Oi, watch it, mate! You're in the way," a rough male voice called from not too far behind them, the tone just touching anger.

Remus slipped his arms around Tonks to grasp the handle bar of the trolley and, keeping Tonks nestled close in front of him, swung the trolley round and ducked them into the relative safety of the aisle to their left.

The shelves were stacked high with every different sort of pasta imaginable, far more than were commonly available in the grocery store in Diagon Alley: spirals, tubes, spaghetti, extra long spaghetti, nests of delicate-looking pasta in pale knots.

"That was a lucky coincidence." Remus released his hold on the trolley and reluctantly took a step back from Tonks, who looked at him with amusement, which made heat rise in his face. Did she know how much she affected him?

"Coincidence? Why d'you think I stopped?"

Probably not because she knew he was staring at her very attractive bottom and plotted to make him run into her, Remus realised, and, feeling warmth rush up from his collar, took another step back from her and quickly turned to examine the selection of pasta.

"Why are there so many different box designs, I wonder?"

Leaving the trolley to stand next to him, Tonks said, "Because Muggles appreciate variety as much as some witches do? Names are a bit boring, though."

Remus sniggered. "This from someone who won't let anyone call her Nymphadora."

"But you certainly try to call me that every chance you get," she said, giving him a look. "Tesco Value, Tesco Finest, plain Tesco...Oh!"

Her hands shot out to snatch a box of pasta off the shelf, knocking two others off in the process. She muttered a curse and bent to pick them up, but there was joy on her face as she stood and presented Remus a box with a flourish.

"These are shaped like little bow-ties! How cute is that? Do you think it cooks just like regular spaghetti? Could we try that?"

Stifling a grin, Remus said, "I've never been much of one for bow-ties, but as it's something we don't see in the Wizarding world, I suppose we ought to try it. Although it appears that kind over there in the green box is cheaper. We'll have more money for dessert if we get it. I have been hankering to try Muggle sweets..."

"Ooh, yes! If they have pretty bows for plain old pasta, imagine what they might have managed in the dessert line!" She restored the pricier pasta to the shelf, and sidestepped once to pluck the product Remus had pointed out. "Let's choose a sauce quickly so we can go and find the interesting stuff."

"Don't you think it's all interesting?" Remus asked as he turned to scan the rest of the aisle, looking for sauce section. It wasn't hard to find, and, as Tonks tossed the pasta into the trolley and grasped the handle, he touched her back to urge her further down the aisle toward their quarry.

"S'pose," she replied. "But there's a limit on how exciting pasta can be."

"This coming from the woman who just described pasta bows as 'cute'?" Remus teased, nudging her playfully with his shoulder.

"They'd be more exciting if they were pink," she said, eyeing the single item in their trolley, fingers inching towards the wand Remus knew was concealed in the band of her jeans.

"Enough of that," Remus said, reaching around her waist to still those pesky fingers. "I think we're on thin enough ice with this section of the mission as it is. It's doubtful that Minerva or Mad-Eye would find pink pasta a diverting enough antic to eschew docking us points for using magic."

"Excuse me!"

At first, Remus thought she was objecting to his slightly more than simply friendly gesture, and as he withdrew his hand, he berated himself for overstepping the mark. It was all well and good draping a friendly arm around her shoulder, but a flattened hand on her hip was that much more intimate.

He was just about to stammer an apology when she said, "It was hardly my fault that you couldn't handle a simple Muggle trolley."

He let out the breath he'd been holding. "You weren't exactly brimming with advice," he said, giving her a light squeeze.

"Hey, I had a readily available pound, didn't I?"

Remus sighed dramatically. "It's never me that just gets to stand around and sort problems by handing out money."

"How about I let you pay when we get to the payment desk thingy?"

"All right," Remus said, pretending to be slightly mollified. "But it's only because you don't want to have to count out the Muggle money in front of a Muggle, isn't it?"

"Yes," Tonks said. "But think about how manly you'll feel handing over all those notes. Now, what kind of sauce do you want? Tomato or cream?"

Ruling out cream sauces, because he was fairly sure they had a tendency to burn rather pungently, hardly narrowed down their choices; there appeared to be more varieties of tomato sauce than there were shapes of pasta, although when they realised that there were, apparently, multiple Muggle companies that all manufactured essentially the same flavours ("Not very creative of them!" Tonks remarked), they settled on the least expensive jar, again with the reasoning that they could get more dessert for their money.

In the fresh produce aisle, they were amazed to find you could buy salad in a bag, the lettuce already chopped, and croutons, cheese, and Caesar dressing in separate packets, ready to be mixed together.

"Hm," mused Remus as he popped one into the trolley. "I wonder if there's a market for that in the Wizarding community. Think anyone would object to lettuce that's been chopped and packaged by a werewolf?" They continued on down the aisle.

Again that look of something like sadness (he didn't think it was pity; he hoped it wasn't pity) glimmered in Tonks' dark eyes, only to flicker into a blaze of defiance as she jutted her chin and pushed the cart toward the baked goods. "I think the domestically disinclined single witch or wizard would welcome Remus' Ready Romaine at magical green grocers. This one would, anyway, and I think half the Auror division would be queued up behind me."

Remus grinned and grabbed a foil-wrapped garlic bread off a baker's rack. ("Hot and crisp in just ten minutes!" he read on the package, and Tonks commented that wands could do it a lot quicker.) "Shall I market Lupin's Loaves, as well?"

They continued in this way as they selected a plain loaf of bread to make toast for breakfast, as well as found eggs, bacon, orange juice; finally, they selected a bottle of inexpensive white wine to complement their Italian dinner. All the while, Tonks pushed the shopping trolley, and Remus admired her swaying hips and the worn bottom of her jeans. Once he had to grab hold of her waist to pull her -- and the trolley -- back just in time to avoid running over a small boy who darted out unexpectedly from an aisle.

Remus held on to her a little longer than was strictly necessary, but the flush on her face, he was certain, had nothing to do with his touch, and everything to do with the near-disaster, as their score sheet deducted a further half a point for "Trolley Mismanagement." Remus suspected it would have been a whole point if he hadn't caught her, but wisely kept that to himself.

It wasn't as if he really had time to comment, anyway, as Tonks, chattering rapidly, said that they'd avoid the trouble Molly Weasley had with washing up Muggle-style if they bought paper plates, napkins, and disposable cups and utensils, and steered the trolley sharply into that aisle, which they happened to be approaching.

The towering paper towel display never saw her coming.

Remus' granddad had taken him to a Muggle bowling alley once, long ago. He thought of it now, as the trolley struck the tower dead on and the white rolls went flying.

Tonks' eyes bulged as she saw the rest of their points docked from the "Trolley Management" portion of their assignment. "Oh, bloody buggering--"

"My stars!"

The elderly female voice on the other side of the display was vaguely familiar. When the paper towels -- it seemed like hundreds of them -- had stopped falling, Remus saw that a number of them had landed in another shopper's trolley. More precisely, the shopper who'd helped them get a trolley in the first place.

Most probably she regretted it now.

"Sorry," breathed Tonks, red-faced and looking as if she might cry. "I'm so sorry, I--"

The lady _hmmph_ed as she removed the errant rolls of paper towels from her trolley, which had slightly dented a loaf of bread, her eyes peering over the tops of her narrow spectacles, scrutinizing Tonks. "Have you never been to a supermarket before, young lady?"

Tonks shook her head, pitifully.

Remus patted her shoulder and took charge of the trolley. "Let's brave the dishwasher after all, shall we?"

She nodded, looking miserably up at him.

He leant close to her, so that her hair tickled his cheek, and said softly in her ear, "Leaves more money for dessert."

_To be continued..._

* * *

_**A/N:** Many thanks to those who left reviews for the prologue. Those kind enough to leave a comment for this part get to go shopping with Remus for a birthday cake and bottle of champagne for __**Gilpin**__._


	3. Part Two

**Part Two**

Throughout the short walk from Tesco's to the house the Order had commandeered for the weekend, which belonged to distant Muggle relations of Hestia Jones who were on holiday all summer on the continent, Tonks trudged behind Remus, dragging her feet and staring in disbelief at the parchment that kept a magical tally of points earned and lost throughout their training. They hadn't performed nearly as well on the Muggle shopping portion of their training as she, a determined -- even perfectionistic -- Hufflepuff to the last, would have preferred. In fact, they'd done so poorly that she was unable to properly appreciate Remus' chivalrous insistence on carrying the two carrier bags full of their purchases, because part of her suspected the gesture wasn't so much gallant as being on guard against their hard-earned shopping being dropped by the clumsy one who'd rammed a trolley into a tower of paper towels. The whole incident had left her in a bit of a strop.

"We might have got away with it, you know," she said as they arrived at the doorstep of their destination and Remus shifted the shopping bags awkwardly to one hand while he fished for the keys in his trouser pocket, "if you hadn't tried to be clever and used your wand to deflect the fall of those paper towels."

"Perhaps not," Remus conceded.

A clunk sounded from within the door as the key turned the lock over. Using his shoulder to push the door while his hands were occupied with keys and bags respectively, Remus opened the door, then stepped aside for Tonks to enter. She felt his steady gaze on her as she swept past him into the hallway, but _her_ eyes were trained on the dimly lit space, looking out for the two overnight bags they'd dropped inside when they met here before the shopping trip.

"But it was a very _tall_ tower," Remus continued. "If I'd not done something, it's quite possible that poor lady would never again have seen the light of day for being buried beneath them."

The door clicked shut behind him, leaving them quite in the dark in the cramped confines of the pokey hallway. If he'd been wearing robes, the hem of his would have been brushing against her legs. As it was, the air felt close from the house having been shut up during the hottest summer on record. Tonks stepped into the kitchen just off the hall and flicked on the light switch.

"As it was," she said, briskly, her eyes sweeping a kitchen that didn't appear to have been redecorated since the 70s, "you were quite content with risking a breach of the Statute of Secrecy." She stuck the score sheet to the refrigerator with the help of one of the dozens of magnets that resided there, holding takeaway menus to the cool, off-white surface. Then, she snatched a bag from Remus' hands and began to pile their purchases on the kitchen counter. "I should arrest you, really."

"I thought that was more in the remit of Magical Law Enforcement," Remus replied, a teasing lilt in his voice as he came to stand next to her, his arm brushing against her shoulder as he began to unload the contents of the other bag.

The jar of pasta sauce slammed to the surface of the counter with more force than Tonks had intended. "I have jurisdiction to arrest for any breach of magical law."

"I take it you won't be exercising that power today," Remus said, "seeing as I currently have custody of the pudding we picked out."

Tonks narrowed her eyes. "Don't think I couldn't dessert disarm you, Lupin."

"Wouldn't think it for a minute. But you know what they say about chocolate cheesecake..."

"What's that?"

He turned to her, presenting the cheesecake, all its chocolatey glory presented in a mouth-watering photograph imprinted on the purple top of the box. "It's better shared."

It was difficult to stay miffed when a man was looking at you as if he didn't for a minute resent that you'd wreaked havoc in public and lost him points in an important assignment, and who was offering to share a chocolate cheesecake with you. Nonetheless, Tonks lifted an eyebrow in mock scepticism.

"Who's they?"

"Well, me, but don't you agree? And it's definitely better shared than those -- how did you put it? -- great balls of Turkish delight."

Despite a hot flush creeping upward from the neck of her t-shirt, Tonks avoided stammering in embarrassment, and even managed an eye-roll. "You're the one with the dirty mind. _All_ I said was, 'Blimey, look at these great balls of something called Turkish Delight', and then you started sniggering. Honestly, Remus, what are you, fourteen?"

He was sniggering again, the infuriating prat, leaning against the counter with his hands shoved into his trouser pockets. "Didn't you tell me earlier I was distinguished?"

"_Look_ distinguished," said Tonks between her teeth. "Who knew that grey hair hid the mind of a randy schoolboy?"

"My apologies, Nymphadora." Before Tonks could scold him, he said, "I suppose it just brings out my inner twerp to hear a pretty girl use words frequently reserved for male anatomy."

Tonks blinked. Had Remus just called her _pretty_? She could hardly believe it -- her hair wasn't even morphed! The very idea -- not to mention the way his blue eyes were looking at her, as if they weren't missing a detail, and weren't put off by a detail -- put her off-balance. She put a hand on the counter to keep herself upright while she regained her sense of equilibrium. One thing was certain, and that was that he'd called her Nymphadora, and that was one good deed that couldn't go unpunished.

Only she couldn't muster up the necessary vim and vigour to utter anything more than a mild, "Don't call me Nymphadora, Remus. But do see if you can't find a pot to cook this pasta in."

As she turned, she caught him giving her a little salute. "Yes, ma'am." He rolled up his shirtsleeves, and then raised his wand. "_Accio_--"

"Don't _Accio_!!" Tonks screamed, whirling around. Momentum seemed to carry her as, without thinking, she launched herself at Remus. The next thing she knew, his arms were tightly around her, his face wore an expression of amusement mixed with a certain degree of perplexity, and she was red-cheeked and wondering what on earth she thought she might have achieved, as, to add injury to insult, the pot Remus had Summoned thumped her squarely on the back of the head. No doubt, pink cheeks would soon be complemented by a sizable purplish bruise.

"Ow!" Her fingers instantly flew to her now throbbing head as the pot crashed to the floor. To her horror, tears smarted in the corners of her eyes. Remus cried out her name, and then his warm fingers were prying her own away and, so tenderly, pushing her hair back so he could assess the damage to her skull. Through pain and mortification, it didn't escape her notice that he kept his free arm wrapped firmly around her.

She blinked furiously against her tears; she never did well with kindness at these moments. Teasing, even mockery, she could deal with, but kindness meant she had to work twice as hard to keep those tears at bay. Thankfully, with just a little dampness in her eyelashes, she was able to meet Remus' murmured enquiry about her well being with a rueful smile that turned into a slight wince as she nodded her head to let him know she was okay.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "That was foolish of me."

He pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat her down in it. Glancing at the score sheet on the refrigerator, he said, "I only cost us half a point on that. Want to spend the other half on a healing spell? I will fully shoulder the blame when Mad-Eye debriefs us. Might even be able to bribe Sirius to remove it if I explain the dire need of the circumstance and promise to let him beat me at cards."

"It's okay." Tonks smiled at him to let him know that it was. "It'll go away in a few. You can make it up to me by getting the pasta on to boil."

But Remus was frowning. "It will never do to let a head injury go untreated."

Tonks opened her mouth in protest, but her argument died on the tip of her tongue as her interest was captured by Remus crossing the narrow kitchen in a single stride to go to the freezer. He bent to open the bottom door, and steam swirled out around his face. Tonks' eyes briefly wavered from him opening one of the drawers to note that his position gave her an advantageous view of his bum, before flicking back in time to see him taking out a plastic tray, the bottom of which was made up of a dozen cube-shaped craters. Remus straightened up and, nudging the freezer door shut with his knee, turned to the workspace. He reached into his trouser pocket and took out a handkerchief, which he spread out on the counter. Then, turning the tray upside down, he took an end in each hand and bent it until a couple of translucent cubes popped out and landed on the handkerchief.

"An ice pack would be brilliant," said Tonks, as Remus knotted his handkerchief around the ice, though her voice sounded a bit cracked to her own ears as his kindness touched her; she remembered her grandpa making an ice pack for her in the same way when she'd stayed with her grandparents and she'd met with some calamity or other whilst playing in the garden.

She reached for the bundle as Remus approached the chair in which she was still sat, but he stepped around her and applied the cold compress lightly to the back of her head himself.

"You don't have to do that," said Tonks, even as she relaxed against the soothing coolness and gentle pressure of his fingers as they held her head still.

"It's my fault that pot came flying at your head in the first place--Tonks!"

"What?" She sucked in her breath through her teeth as the sudden jerk of her head made it throb. "Did you see something outside?"

She started to get up, but Remus' hand on her shoulder held her in place. "Just look at the score sheet, there, at the bottom."

Under the "Bonus Points" heading, a new item had appeared: "Muggle First-Aid - 2 Points."

"Maybe you should hit me on the head so we can earn a few more," Remus joked.

"Or maybe you ought to put the rest of that ice back in the freezer before we lose what we just gained."

"Keep it there a little longer," Remus said, gently, pushing her hand back to hold the ice pack against her head, which now only ached dully. "I'll tell you what we should pop in the freezer for a bit: that bottle of wine."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Tonks asked. "Won't it, you know, freeze? I'm no expert in these matters, but I once did a freezing charm on a bottle of Butterbeer that had been sitting in the sun all day and it exploded."

"A freezer doesn't work like a freezing charm. Muggles do everything slowly. We'll put it in for an hour or so, and it'll be fine."

Though retaining a modicum of doubt, Tonks was content to defer to Remus' judgement. Once the bottle of wine was (ostensibly) safely ensconced in the bottom drawer of the freezer, she cheekily informed Remus that just because he'd gained them two points and all but cured her throbbing head, he wasn't excused from starting off the dinner.

Remus quickly stowed away their shopping in cupboards or in the fridge, then retrieved the pot from the floor. He inspected it carefully, with a brow furrowed deeply in concentration, and declared that Tonks' head hadn't done it any damage.

"I think," Tonks rejoined, "that I should be inclined to blame the floor, had there been any damage."

Remus placed the pot on the stove and bent to peer closely at the knobs beneath them. "You're right," he said, taking a quick glance her way. "In Tonks versus cooking pot, it was a foregone conclusion in the pot's favour."

Tonks opened her mouth in retort, but closed it again when she realised she had none. Should she find herself offered a wager on such a battle in the future, it would be wishful thinking and fiscally imprudent to accept.

"Ever used a Muggle stove before?" Remus asked. "I have no idea what these numbers mean."

Tonks stood and shuffled to join him at the cooker. "Neither do I," she replied. "Why don't you just turn it on and see what happens?"

"Do you reckon?" Remus regarded the appliance warily.

"Remus, we're an Auror and an ex-professor, what's the worst that could happen?"

This time, Remus turned his sceptical gaze on her, and she couldn't meet it with staunch determination for long.

"Okay," she admitted, looking away from him. "I know our record's not been great today. Still, a show of bravery?"

Remus nodded and took a deep breath, which made Tonks want to laugh, but in another show of what she considered comradely support, she schooled her face into a mask of mixed confidence and gravity, which she thought Remus would feel to be fitting and appropriate for the task.

When he turned the knob, there was an upstart of a slight hissing sound, but no flame was forthcoming. Then, faintly at first, but growing stronger with each passing second, much stronger, a smell pricked at the edge of her memory and then it hit her.

_Muggle gas! _

"Turn it off!" she cried. "Quickly!"

As quick as the flash Tonks was anxious to prevent, Remus flipped the knob back to the off position. "What is it?"

"It's gas. They taught us about it in training. It's more explosive than a Rita Skeeter headline!" She rushed over to the window above the sink and opened it to let some air in.

"What on earth are Muggles doing with it in their homes, then?"

"Beats me." Tonks opened another window by the table, then turned back to Remus. "They must know what they're doing with it, because they all have it."

"Unlike us," Remus said, "who neither have it nor know what to do with it."

He sounded as perplexed and frustrated as Tonks had ever seen him.

"I'm sure it's nothing we can't deal with," she said, with more optimism than she felt. If _Remus_ was dubious, how much hope did they really have of succeeding at Muggle cookery? But the smell had almost gone, which was something. She went back to the cooker and bent to peer closely at the hobs.

"See these holes?" She glanced up to Remus.

"Mm." He bent his head close to hers, so close she could feel the heat from his body and his breath tickling the side of her face, which made it difficult to concentrate on hobs and how they worked.

"I reckon the gas comes out of that, and when it's on fire, it burns so quickly that it never has the chance to be dangerous and do explody things. So what we need is fire. That fancy blue flame trick of yours would come in handy at this point."

"Indeed. Perhaps there are some of those...What do they call them? Matches?"

"Matches! Genius, Remus. What do they look like?"

Her rising hope took a downturn when Remus looked sheepish and said, "Erm, I'm not entirely sure. Let's start looking and hope that they come in a box with a nice big label."

Luckily, Remus found a box of matches in the first drawer he searched -- the one directly to the right of the cooker, which made sense and cemented in Tonks' mind that matches and cookers were a good match, and it was all in the name.

"Now," Remus said, palming the small box and pushing out a small tray lined with matches like soldiers in formation. "How do you think we should do this?"

He took out a single match and examined it carefully, then drew it slowly along one side of the box. A spark flew, but it guttered and died.

"Assuming you can get a match to light," Tonks said, "I'll turn the knob and you hold the match near those holes? If nothing happens I can turn it off quickly and we can try again."

"Okay."

Remus drew another match and repeated the process, this time, it seemed, with a little more confidence. It was not misplaced; the spark burst into flame! He darted forward to hold the burning match to the hob, but the movement, it seemed, was too much for the tiny flame to cope with, and it flickered out in a furious flurry of aromatic smoke.

"I'll stand a bit closer this time," he said as he drew yet another match.

"Third time's the charm," said Tonks, and then, her eyes darting at the score sheet with a paranoia worthy of Mad-Eye, added, "Metaphorically speaking, of course."

On the next attempt, the flame burned steadily, as Remus lowered it to the hob. Tonks turned the knob, and at once, with a low, short-lived roar, a flower of small flames danced, in cornflower blue, around the circular disc of the smoky black hob.

They grinned at each other.

"How's that for teamwork?" said Remus, and Tonks, ridiculously, blushed. She turned quickly away from him in the hope that he wouldn't notice, picking up the cooking pot and carrying it to the sink.

"Let's not count our dragons before they hatch," she said, turning on the tap to release a jet of cold water into the pot. "Once we've got our pasta dinner on the table, then we can toast our teamwork."

She worried that Remus would be put off by her reaction, but he said, "Probably wise. Look up there."

Tonks glanced over her shoulder and followed his gesturing finger and upswept gaze to the ceiling and a circular scorch mark directly over the hob.

"Either the homeowners keep a pet dragon," said Remus, "or one of the previous teams had a spot of trouble with the cooker."

"Is that...?" Tonks squinted at a high spot on the wall. "Is that dried spaghetti stuck to the wallpaper?"

"Hm. It would certainly appear to be."

"How do you think they managed that?"

"Not sure, but you'd best shut that tap off."

"Blast!" She was overflowing the pot, though, thankfully, only into the sink and down the drain, and not all over the floor. Water off, she tilted the pot to carefully empty out a bit of the extra water. "Reckon we'll lose any points for that one?"

"So far, so good," said Remus, glancing over his shoulder to check the score sheet.

"Luckily." Tonks started to heft the pot out of the sink, when Remus was suddenly at her side, his hands covering hers on the handles of the pot.

"Allow me," he said softly, and before she could protest, he'd prised it from her hands and carried it across the kitchen, placing it upon the hob.

"Thanks," said Tonks, feeling the warmth in her cheeks once again, but this time not bothering to hide it as she handed him the lid. His fingers brushed hers as he took it from her, and she heard herself saying, "Gryffindor chivalry?" Then, realising how stupid that must have sounded, she arched her eyebrow and said, "Or did you just think it was pushing your luck to let me carry a pot of water across the kitchen?"

Remus' eyes twinkled, and he ducked his head in an ever so slightly guilty way, but Tonks couldn't even pretend to be annoyed at him when he said, in a flirty tone, "Gryffindor chivalry, of course. Only I think it ends at carrying pots of water, as I'm wearing my best white shirt, and I think I'd rather you be in charge of the tomato sauce, if you don't mind."

Out the corner of her eye, Tonks noticed an apron hanging on the doorknob of what was, presumably, the pantry. She plucked it off and tossed it to Remus. "I think you should just wear this."

Laughing, he unfurled it. His laughter dropped to a soft chuckle as Tonks' eyes bulged at the slogan printed on the front of it. She moved to snatch it from him, but he'd already slung it over his neck.

"Does this mean you'll be kissing me?" he asked in a way that made Tonks' heart miss a beat with the hope that maybe, just maybe, he meant he'd very much like her to kiss him.

"Maybe," she said. "Although that rather depends on whether you actually do anything to earn the title of cook."

Remus smiled flirtatiously as he tied the apron around his slim waist. "Suddenly I find myself very much more motivated to succeed at this portion of our assignment."

Tonks returned his grin. "You know what? Me, too."

* * *

_**A/N: Reviewers get an opportunity to kiss the cook...**_


	4. Part Three

**Part Three**

The kitchen was a disaster zone of the highest order -- even Voldemort would be hard put to replicate the chaos that was the evidence of their combined lack of culinary finesse, which was conspicuous at every glance. Even the bagged salad had gone awry, as had the garlic bread they'd only had to stick in the oven on a medium heat setting for ten minutes. If it had happened to anyone else, Remus would be back at Grimmauld Place with Sirius, keeping an eye on the score sheet and laughing his socks off. But it _hadn't_ happened to anyone else, it had happened to him, and to Tonks, who sat across the kitchen table, pale and dazed and vaguely ill-looking, as if she'd just had a bad run-in with Dementors, and it wasn't the least bit funny.

Failure, Remus thought as the edge of the table dug into his elbow and his chin bore into the heel of his hand, was felt all the more keenly when you'd so recently been on top of the world. He couldn't have imagined Tonks' clear indication that she found the prospect of kissing him -- as the foolish apron he'd hung over the back of his chair had put into their minds -- appealing. She _had_ been keen to succeed in the cookery portion of the mission for reasons other than scoring points or sating pangs of hunger.

He knew, of course, that he would be doing Tonks a disservice if he thought his recent display of ineptitude would sway any desire she might have to kiss him. When you came right down to it, his disappointment lay in the fact that he'd thoroughly botched a gift of an opportunity to kiss her, or let her kiss him, with an escape route around embarrassment for both of them, should he have misread the situation or she decide she wasn't interested after all.

When did things get so complicated? Or was he simply complicating matters for himself, as usual? Was it really, in fact, quite as simple as just kissing her?

Chancing a glance at Tonks, Remus realised with a guilty jolt that she looked just as upset, just as disappointed and deflated as he felt. If he was to pass muster as a potential suitor, he'd better stop deliberating on his own feelings and start attending to hers -- especially since he'd already proven he did _not_ pass muster as cook. If he was collecting suitor points as well as Muggle living points, successfully cheering her up must be worth at least two -- and one of those special smiles of hers.

Before he could talk himself out of it, Remus reached across the table and took her hand.

"We tried," he said. "And had we not been on a mission and trying to earn points, or rather, trying not to lose them, we'd both probably have found this as funny as Lewis Jordon's comedy slot on the WWN." In fact, without his bidding, a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You've got to admit that me turning 'round the moment you stepped out the way and the sauce exploded was perfect comic timing."

He gave her hand an encouraging squeeze, but Tonks' reply was quiet, and her gaze remained fixed on the table.

"I'm not sure I could ever find humiliating myself in front of someone I'm desperately trying to impress funny."

Her tone was not one he was accustomed to hearing in her, but for an instant, Remus' mind fixed on the words 'desperately trying to impress,' and his heart soared for a moment longer before he registered the misery on her face. He dropped her hand briefly while he moved quickly around the table to kneel before her, sitting back on his heels and taking both her hands in his.

"You've never humiliated yourself in front of me, Tonks, and you never could. No one can humiliate themselves in front of someone who cares, and I do care for you. A lot." She didn't meet his eyes, but hers seemed to be fixed on their hands in her lap. "And as for impressing me, you've done that since the moment we met, and it's been a long time since I've thought you could do no wrong."

He held his breath for a moment, wondering if he'd said too much, exposed himself and his feelings to the point of no return. But then a quiet smile crept to the corners of her mouth, in an expression he thought was gratitude mixed with tenderness. It made his heart leap with hope, and filled him just a little bit more with the affection that had been gradually deepening into a much stronger emotion.

"Thank you," she said softly. "And it's mutual, you know -- caring."

In that moment, as he met her eyes and they gazed at each other in silence, Remus knew that everything had changed. He felt understanding pass between them, and while he knew that this scene wouldn't dissolve into a frenzy of passionate kisses -- not yet, anyway, it was enough to know that this thing between them was acknowledged and _real_. At their own pace they would explore the path that had opened up before them. It was a thrilling thought, but it also brought a measure of relief that calmed him.

Remus sat up, transferring the weight to his knees, and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to her cheek that lingered slightly longer than to be mistaken as simply platonic -- and, given the way her pale face bloomed with a pink glow that made him miss her customary hair colour, he was sure Tonks hadn't mistaken the meaning behind the gesture.

Drawing reluctantly back from her soft, sweet-smelling skin, he stood, pulling her up with him. "Shall we shut the door on this chaos and see if there are any points to be gained in the art of ordering Muggle takeaway?"

"Oh, yes!" she said eagerly, tripping over to the refrigerator. "There are lots of menus here!"

After a few minutes' perusal of the selection of takeaway menus hung on magnets on the fridge, Tonks took one down.

"How about this one?" She handed him a menu for an establishment called Pizza Hut. "Do you think it's really a hut?"

"It's a bit misleadingly named if it's not," he replied, scanning the article. "But their food sounds tasty."

They relocated to the living room and sat on the couch, knees and thighs touching, while they perused the menu together. Eventually they settled on a Hawaiian pizza (because Tonks thought it was an apt sort of pizza to get from a hut), garlic bread with cheese, and some chicken wings; then Tonks realised that if they ordered potato wedges as well, they'd get a deal that would not only save them three of their Muggle pounds, but give them a free bottle of soft drink, as well -- which she thought might earn them an extra point, at least, for working out the most cost-effective way of ordering food.

The leaflet informed them that they could telephone to arrange delivery, or, alternatively, they could collect their food from their nearest restaurant. Remus had picked up the phone and examined it, to find himself confused when it was not attached to a wire; Tonks concurred that telephones needed a wire to work, and they'd both dropped to their hands and knees to look beneath the telephone table for a wire that might do the job, but the only one to be found was the one that fed into the holder the telephone rested in and they didn't think pulling it out would be a wise move. Puzzled, but keen to avoid another mishap, they seemed to decide with one mind that since the weather was pleasant and they'd time enough on their hands, an evening stroll would be rather nice. And so, without further thought to the mess in the kitchen or the events that had led to it, they stepped out of the front door into a warm, overcast evening -- which was a pleasant change from the long summer of drought -- bound, hand in hand, for Pizza Hut.

"This is a lot of food for two people," said Tonks, eying the spread of open Pizza Hut boxes on the coffee table in the living room of the commandeered Muggle house. "I knew in my head what we were getting, but somehow it doesn't seem like as much in the abstract. In person..." She grinned up at Remus through her fringe, sheepish because the potato wedges had been her idea. "Well, we shouldn't have bought bread and eggs, as cold pizza makes a nice breakfast!"

"Assuming we have any pizza leftover to go cold," said Remus, reaching across the table to hand her a plate. "You seem to be forgetting that one of the two persons present is of the male persuasion. Our kind have a mind-boggling ability to make room in our stomachs for any and all leftover pizza, no matter how many slices or what else we've already eaten."

"True," replied Tonks, who'd watched the Auror department put away what she'd thought were enough pizzas to feed every Wizarding family in Britain. And her dad, on the rare occasions her mum let him bring home pizza from Zabini's, always came home with two large pizzas, which even as a small child had seemed like a good deal more than was strictly necessary for three people. Yet, curiously, there'd never been any leftover...

At Remus' urging, she selected a slice of pizza from the box; the weight of a pineapple at the end caused a cheese avalanche, but miraculously, she managed to keep it off her clothes. Piling the errant cheese and pineapple back on, she asked Remus, "Do you lot have some sort of spell that expands your stomachs for pizza eating?"

Remus was helping himself to four pieces. "I've wondered if it's a form of Metamorphmagery, triggered by the aroma of pizza." One bright blue eye winked at her.

"Don't know if it has anything to do with being a Metamorphmagus..." Carefully, with both hands, Tonks lifted her pizza to her mouth. "...but the aroma's definitely triggered _something_ in this one."

She couldn't help giving an _mmm_ as her mouth was filled with the gooey warmth of soft bread, mozzarella cheese, spicy tomato sauce, savoury ham, and sweet pineapple. So many contrasting tastes and textures were surely enough to please a gourmet's palate; though Tonks was just glad to hear an answering moan of food-induced delight from Remus.

When she'd swallowed, she said, "Glad something finally went off without a hitch. Coke?"

"Please, and thank you." Remus finished off his first slice of pizza, and licked his thumb clean as she poured them both glasses of Muggle fizzy drink -- a gesture which made her stomach hitch, causing her to slosh liquid over the coffee table. Almost reflexively, that same long-fingered hand that had so effectively distracted her swooped in with a paper napkin and sopped up the mess.

"Even though Pizza Hut didn't exactly live up to its name?" he teased.

"I'm no businesswitch, but I guarantee you it'd boost their marketing by a hundred percent if they actually operated out of huts!"

"Maybe they do in other parts of the world." Remus tilted his head back and took a long drink of Coke, Tonks' eyes following the roll of his Adam's apple down his pale, slender neck until it disappeared into his collar. "Huts aren't exactly practical shelter in England." He indicated the dark water spots that polka dotted their cardboard food containers. "We did only just beat the rain home. Imagine what would happen to pizzas made under grass roofs!"

The rain was drumming down on _their_ roof, and Tonks found the rhythm of it, along with the occasional rumble of distant thunder, though quite a bit tamer than her usual Weird Sisters fare, the perfect music for a cosy night in with a man with whom...well, there were certainly a lot of possibilities for what might happen with this man tonight! For now, Tonks did her best not to let her heart beat any quicker than the pattering rain and to keep up the companionable banter she so enjoyed with Remus. Were her palms sweaty, or was that pizza grease?

"Who said the huts had to have grass roofs?" she said. "What about those sturdy waddle and daub shelters the ancient Celts lived in? Those must've done a fair job of keeping out the rain."

"Couldn't really serve Hawaiian pizza from an outfit like that, though, could you?"

"Wouldn't matter, the way the male patrons shove it straight into their stomachs. What are you on now, your fourth?"

"Erm, fifth," said Remus, looking a little more stuffed than he ought to have after that impressive speech about male metabolism. He laid a half-eaten slice on his plate and reached for the chicken wings. "Although I should probably save a little room for these, and have a few potato wedges before they get cold."

"Don't forget we've got that yummy-looking chocolate cheesecake, too. And the wine."

Their eyes locked, Remus' blue ones as wide as hers felt.

_The wine._

At once their bodies unfolded like pocket knives, and they bolted for the kitchen, both slamming shoulders against the door frame as they tried to go through at the same time. Remus' arms briefly went around Tonks, steadying her as he murmured an apology, but he never broke stride, so his longer legs carried him across the darkened kitchen to the refrigerator before leaving Tonks trailing behind. He jerked open the freezer door and took out a frosted-over bottle of white wine.

The lines of his face tugged downward into an expression so dejected that Tonks forced herself not to look at their score sheet, which no doubt had deducted points from "Refrigeration Techniques." What was more important now than learning how to live like Muggles was learning how to live like people who might one day soon be more than comrades-in-arms, or even friends. They had to learn how to deal with mistakes together.

Resisting the urge to say, once again, 'I thought Muggles did everything slower,' she sauntered up beside him, prised the ice-cold bottle from his slackened fingers, and held it upside-down, by the neck. He didn't look at her, so she chanced slipping one arm around his waist. A shiver that had nothing to do with the frozen wine bottle coursed through her arm as she considered how comfortably her arm fitted around him.

"Winecicles compliment chocolate cheesecake very well, I've heard."

Remus sighed rather dramatically and said, "At least it didn't explode, I suppose. Do you think we could risk popping it in the microwave to thaw it out?"

"I think that would be well and truly pushing the boundaries of our luck," Tonks replied, but, before Remus' shoulders could drop another inch in defeat, she hastily added, "but I reckon we'd be safe boiling the kettle and popping the bottle in some hot water for a few minutes."

Remus looked slightly abashed that he'd not thought of that himself, and flashed her the ghost of a wry grin. "That's a much better plan. I'm so glad you're around to point these obvious things out."

When he slipped his arm around her shoulders and warmth suffused her, Tonks suddenly realised just how cold her fingers had become, holding the frozen bottle, so she set it gingerly on the counter in front of them.

"And then perhaps if we're successful at kettle boiling and wine thawing," Remus added, "we could have a go at the TV while we eat dessert."

"TV shouldn't be too difficult. I don't think they explode or overheat or anything like that, do they?"

"Not that I'm aware of, but I think we've already established that when it comes to the Muggle world, there's a lot I'm not aware of."

Despite their utter lack of skill when it came to boiling water to cook bow-tie pasta, they managed to boil the kettle and thaw the wine in a few minutes without incident. Continuing on their own mission of crockery economy, they cut one large slice of chocolate cheesecake to share between them, grabbed forks and glasses, and headed, wine and dessert in hand, into the living room, where they settled on the settee.

Remus poured them each a glass of wine, though a quick sip told Tonks it was still a little on the chilly side. Remus assured her that it wouldn't take long, in the warm sitting room, for it to rise to the perfect sipping temperature. Her glass carefully placed out of the way on the floor, Tonks clambered onto the sofa and sat cross-legged, her back square to the arm of the seat. When Remus positioned himself in a mirror of her position, it gave her a quiet thrill to see him so relaxed, with his feet clad only in a pair of grey woollen socks, his collar undone and shirt sleeves rolled up. It was, so much more intimate than evenings spent at Grimmauld Place, and, sitting so close, facing him as she was, there was so much more to observe about him: the smile lines that ever so slightly creased at the corners of his eyes, giving his face a character that seemed to be ever ready for amusement; a day's growth of stubble peppering his cheeks; and a hundred other minute details that brought him closer, made him more real than just a perfect character etched in her imagination.

"Ladies first," he said, lifting the plate he held between them just slightly to indicate he meant for her to take the first taste.

"Is that chivalry," Tonks asked, "or are you borrowing Mad Eye's tactic of making sure food isn't poisoned by offering it to someone else first?" She cut her fork into the cheesecake, anyway, and scooped up a mouthful.

"I solemnly swear that if I suspected poisoned food, I would offer myself as a guinea pig for you."

A reply was impossible for Tonks, because she'd already popped the cheesecake in her mouth and closed her eyes in delight.

"How is it?" Remus asked, eagerly.

"So good," she answered thickly as she let the chocolate melt on her tongue. "Try some."

He did. "Mmm. Purchasing this was the best decision we made all day." He paused and looked at her, cocking his head slightly and looking at her intently. "Well, _almost._"

Tonks' heart almost stopped as she considered that he was referring to the moment that had passed between them earlier in the kitchen, when their relationship had shifted by degrees into something that promised so much more. To distract herself from saying anything that might break _this_ moment, she hurried to load her fork with another piece of cake, and shovelled it into her mouth. Remus did the same, albeit, Tonks felt, with slightly more dignity -- which, when he reached over and, with his thumb, wiped what she assumed was some stray chocolate from the corner of her mouth, was something she might have worried about a little bit more had his touch not been so very gentle, his skin so very soft, and had his thumb not continued its path to skim across her lips in the barest tickle.

Her breathing had become shallow, and she could still feel his touch on her lips when she looked up and met Remus' eyes, which were fixed on hers, as he raised his hand to his own mouth and licked the chocolate clean from his thumb.

Desire was as strong a force of emotion within her as she'd ever felt before, and Tonks wasn't quite sure how it was that she was still sitting on the sofa, dumbstruck, how she hadn't leapt forward to kiss Remus for all she was worth. In fact, with that look on _his_ face, she wasn't quite sure how they weren't wound tightly in each others' arms, showing each other exactly what they were feeling... When suddenly they were doing exactly that.

Well, maybe not _exactly_. There was no passionate embrace; they had simply leaned in toward each other at the same moment, tilted their heads, and touched their lips, so softly, together. Remus' thumb and forefinger held her chin lightly, lifting her face up toward his. Tonks' breath had caught in her chest as she felt the warmth of his on her skin. It was such a little thing, this kiss, by most people's terms, anyway; and yet to her, it was everything she'd hoped for, and so much more...

And it was over much too soon.

"Well," Remus said, his voice husky -- which eased Tonks' disappointment that the kiss had ended, because it meant she got to hear him breathless, see him looking at her rather hazily, as if he'd just drunk Euphoria Elixir, all because he _had_ kissed her. "Before we get too carried away and have to explain to Mad-Eye why we didn't complete our Muggle training, shall we see what we can do with this television?"

Tonks nodded. "Probably a good idea," she said, grinning at the out of breath quality of her own voice. "I don't fancy breaking the news of..._us_...quite like that."

They turned from each other, reluctantly, Tonks thought, as if maybe the trade-off of kissing were worth whatever consequences they'd face later, to look at the small television set crammed between the fireplace and the doorway into the front hall. But disappointment didn't last as the sofa cushion shifted and Remus slid nearer to her, so that their thighs just rested against each other; he stretched out his arm across the back of the sofa behind her, and she rested one hand on his leg. For a moment, neither said anything as they stared at their silhouetted reflections, melded into one as if they'd become a two-headed person, in the blank dark grey screen.

Then, afraid Remus would hear her heart hammering in her chest, Tonks broke the silence. "So...how do we turn it on, then?"

"Isn't there supposed to be a dial on front?"

"Hm..." Tonks squinted as she mentally trekked back in time to visits to Gran and Grandpa Tonks' house. "I think maybe back in the old days."

Remus glanced down at her, and Tonks gulped, realising her faux pas.

Quickly, she amended, "I mean, since then they've gone to buttons, I think."

"I don't see any buttons," said Remus, looking at the television again.

"They must be hidden. I don't particularly want to get up and look."

"Neither do I."

Tonks was glad to hear it. "Isn't there another way? Surely Muggles don't get up and down every time they want to watch a different programme?"

"Don't ask me," said Remus. "You're the one with the Muggle-born parent."

"So are you!"

"But _my_ Muggle-born parent rather pre-dates television."

"Didn't you ever watch telly at your Muggle grandparents'?"

"Didn't you?" Remus raised an eyebrow. "Weren't you just telling me this afternoon about morphing to imitate the characters you saw on the programmes?"

"Well, yes, but I wasn't allowed to _touch_ the TV. Grandpa was in charge of the--Duh!"

She smacked herself on the forehead, then twisted sideways and spotted the object she'd suddenly remembered. Long, flat, and covered in rubbery buttons. She aimed it at the television.

"What's that?" Remus asked, with an interest that wasn't a far cry from Arthur Weasley in his tones. "Some kind of Muggle magic wand?"

"It's called a remote."

"A remote what?"

Tonks wavered, suspecting she was still forgetting something crucial, but swallowed the feeling so as not to show it. "Nothing. Just a remote. Watch."

She punched the button marked "Power."

Remus gave a slight jump beside her as the television flickered on. Tonks turned to him, grinning hugely. "Presto."

"Well done," he said, looking mostly impressed -- but his forehead was lined as if he was suffering a slight physical strain. "Although at risk of sounding like a fuddy-duddy, some of us haven't destroyed our eardrums blaring the Weird Sisters. Do you know how to make it play just a little quieter?"

Tonks looked at the device in her hand and once again, her confidence abandoning her like air from a leaky balloon as she contemplated the myriad buttons.

"What about that one?" Remus pointed to one marked AV. "Or is that _Avada Kedavra_?"

"I don't know, shall I test it?" Tonks aimed the remote at him, but Remus covered the end of it with his hand and gently pulled it away from her.

"Surely using the Killing Curse on your partner would result in something a little more serious than failing the Muggle Entertainment and Technology portion of our training?"

"I don't think this is about losing points or me going to prison at all," said Tonks. "Gran was always muttering about men and their remotes."

_This_ man was certainly interested in this remote.

"What about these up and down arrow-shaped buttons, marked 'Vol'?" asked Remus, showing her the remote.

"Vol probably stands for volume, doesn't it?" said Tonks, sheepishly.

"I should think so -- ah, yes." The TV was playing a lot more quietly now. "But what does 'Chan' mean? Whatever it is, you can apparently make it go up and down, as well."

"Only one way to find out," said Tonks. "Or aren't you a Gryffindor?"

"Let it never be said that this Gryffindor shrank in fear from a little box called telly."

Tonks watched Remus' thumb purposely press the up 'Chan' button. She jumped when the low sounds of talking switched to squealing tires and a crash. Remus' arm slid down from the back of the sofa and went around her shoulders, hugging her firmly against his side.

"Are you all right?" His eyes had left the TV and now searched her face almost anxiously; if Tonks had been embarrassed by startling, any shred of the feeling was gone when she saw there was no hint of amusement on his face.

"Fine," said Tonks, breathlessly. "Just startled me."

"Only you drew your wand."

Tonks glanced down at her hand and saw that her fingers were, indeed, wrapped around her wand. Quickly, blushing, she pocketed it. "Well, I was trained by Mad-Eye Moody. We didn't get any points off for that, did we?"

Without moving his arm from around her, Remus leaned over to check the score sheet, which they'd relocated from the kitchen to the coffee table after their excursion to Pizza Hut.

"_Wand Drawn During Television Watching - Minus Ten Points,_" he said, frowning.

Tonks stared at him for a moment. "You're taking the piss."

A grin broke Remus' serious mask. "I am."

"Git."

Fist balled, Tonks swiped at him to punch him lightly on his chest, but as he'd caught the remote, his fingers closed around her hand. She held her breath as he raised her hand up to his mouth and brushed his lips across her knuckles. His mouth and breath were so warm, and yet the kiss caused gooseflesh to rise on her arm, the fine hairs standing up to attention.

Thunder rumbled.

Remus' blue eyes flicked up to her. "I'm sorry."

Tonks took a chance. "That was a very mean trick. You're going to have to do better than that if you want me to forgive you."

"Oh, well," he said, tightening his arm around her so that she was pulled tight against his side, "I could propose a toast, but that would mean I'd have to let go of you to top up our glasses and I don't really want to do that."

Tonks' heart hammered wildly in her chest, in contrast to a lazy roll of thunder outside in the distance. In the back of her mind, she'd half-wondered whether the magic between them would fade once they'd broken through that physical barrier of a first kiss; she found herself anticipating the second even more than the elusive first.

"I don't want you to do that, either," she managed to say.

Remus looked at her, a broad smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. It was a very nice mouth, she thought, as she had so many times, and it was especially nice now she knew how his soft lips felt brushing against hers.

"If I had three hands, I'd be pulling your legs up here." Remus indicated his lap with the hand that still held on to hers. "Seeing as I haven't, do you think your legs would mind making their way up here on their own steam?"

Tonks let out a slight giggle, which was a bit of a foreign sound to her own ears: she wasn't the giggling sort. "I reckon they could manage that," she said, and she swung her legs up and settled them in Remus' lap.

He seemed to have forgotten about the TV for the moment, even though voices were still a low murmur in the background, and, hoping to distract him from it entirely, Tonks asked, "What would you toast to, if you'd say, four hands and a spare to fill our glasses?"

"Oh, all manner of things, I expect: Muggle shopping trolleys and partners with pound coins on hand to be the saviour of my manly pride; to chocolate cheesecake and Pizza Hut and learning new things."

"Have you learnt something today?" Tonks asked, with interest.

"Certainly," Remus answered. "You don't let the water you're cooking pasta in boil dry, or trust that handing over responsibility for cooking the pasta sauce to your usually able and capable friend will necessarily save your pristine white shirt from droplets of pureed tomato -- even if you are wearing an apron."

"Hey!" Tonks poked him admonishingly in the ribs. "Can't you find something nicer to toast?"

"Okay," Remus said, drawing out the word. "I learnt that when I put my arm around you, your shoulder tucks under my arm like a perfect fit." Tonks' heart skipped a beat at the thought of Remus noticing that little fact, too. "And I learnt that when you hold my hand, you wrap your little finger around mine, like this."

He held up their joined fists, that did indeed show their little fingers entwined, but... "I thought it was you that did that."

"Never done it before in my life," Remus said, his eyes met hers and held, seemingly fathomless in depth.

"Nor me," she replied in a low voice.

"Tonks..." He spoke her name like a caress.

Who made the first move, Tonks didn't think she'd ever be able to say, but it felt like they moved as one. His hand cupped her cheek, and his eyes burned into hers from close quarters for just a moment before their lips touched in the gentlest of kisses; she just tasted the moist skin of his bottom lip as it moved over hers. It left her breathless, and aching for more when Remus pulled away --

--but only to say, "I think we've watched enough TV," and punch the power button on the remote, shutting the contraption off.

He kissed her again, pressing slightly more insistently; Tonks wrapped her arms around him, pulling herself into him, into his kiss. In some ways it was everything she'd imagined kissing him like this would be, and so very unexpected in others. Much like him, his kiss was one of opposites. It made her relax into him as the rest of the world washed away, but heat spread through her like a fever, driving deeper a restless desire for more. While he touched her with what felt like respect and a little reverence, he wasn't shy or tentative; his hands twisted in her hair possessively, grazed her arms with purpose, and pulled her further into him at the small of her back; his lips and tongue teased hers with surety, confidence. It felt new and yet strangely familiar at the same time. A little bit like coming home... And it felt _brilliant_.

At a sudden thought that occurred, Tonks felt the quiver of a laugh at the bottom of her belly. She tried to hold back, because the thought in and of itself really wasn't that funny, but she was so wonderfully happy, so ebullient with joy, that she couldn't help herself. Her lips still on Remus', she giggled.

He drew back just enough to meet her eye, and gave her a look that might have been admonishing, had his eyes not been twinkling. "I know I haven't done much to recommend my skills to you today, but I thought I could at least kiss you without doing something wrong."

"Oh no," said Tonks. "I was just thinking about how very right this feels." Though she felt a little shy, she told him what she'd been thinking, about being home. "Which is completely daft, considering we've commandeered some Muggles' house, don't you think?"

As she'd spoken a tender expression had come over Remus' features, which told her he was deeply touched -- and that he felt the same.

"Do you know what I think?" he asked, sitting up and pulling her up with him. His eyes held that Marauderish gleam.

"I'm sure I couldn't begin to guess."

In a single deft movement, he stood and scooped her up into his arms, her arms going around his neck as he gazed down at her.

"I think we ought to see how many points we can get for going to bed like Muggles."

_**To be continued...**_

* * *

_**A/N: Those kind enough to leave a review get an evening with the Remus of their choice: Marauder Remus, who challenges you to a pizza-eating contest; romantic Remus, who just wants to share a slice of chocolate cheesecake; or seductive Remus, who claims not to know anything about going to bed like a Muggle and needs you to help tuck him in...**_


	5. Part Four

**Part Four**

Remus wasn't entirely sure where he was when he woke, but as he took in, through blinking eyes, the strange light filtering in through dark curtains, the unfamiliar furniture looming in morning shadows, and -- in comparison to the heavy blankets that made up his bed at Grimmauld -- the much lighter weight of the duvet above him, the sight of Tonks asleep beside him brought to mind her words from the previous night about feeling at home with him: new and exciting though it was, waking to find Tonks next to him felt as natural as anything could. An entire morning and afternoon in this pseudo-life lay ahead of them, presenting a world of possibilities, each of which had the potential to be more terrifying than the one before, but Remus only felt a pleasant sense of anticipation for whatever might come next.

If Tonks hadn't been so very real and warm beside him, Remus wondered if he would have had no other option but to put his memories of the previous evening down to a dream fuelled by hope and long-suppressed desire. But her lips were still faintly reddened; her hair was tousled beyond the norm after a night's sleep. His stomach turned over pleasantly at the thought of what they'd done last night: from getting ready for bed together, sharing a sink and mirror as they'd brushed their teeth, exchanging what could only be described as silly toothpaste foam grins between their reflections, to slipping beneath the covers and finding a perfect niche in each others' arms, nothing but thin pyjama material between them; he was fairly certain they'd spent a couple of hours, time passing like rivulets of falling water, doing nothing but sharing kisses that started soft and slow before crescendoing to something much more fiery and purposeful.

No longer able to tolerate the space that the night had put between them, inconsiderable in normal terms though it was, Remus reached for Tonks. She rolled into is arms so naturally, as though she'd done it before in dreams, not really waking, but wrapping an arm around his middle as her head fell to his shoulder. Remus felt a swell of affection that puffed up in his chest as he was struck with a desire to have her awake beside him. For a few minutes he simply watched her, taking in all that she was in restful repose, but then he pressed a long kiss to her forehead, ran his hand, flat-palmed, up her arm to her neck, where his thumb passed over the muscles there and then travelled further, across her jaw.

Tonks stirred softly, her arm tightening briefly around him as her knee pushed between his thighs so that their legs entwined. He kissed her again, this time high on her cheekbone, and she blinked sleepily once, twice, then looked up at him though heavily-lidded eyes.

"Morning," he whispered.

"Mm," was the only reply she made as her eyes fluttered closed again; but he didn't miss the smile that was only just shy of becoming a full grin begin to spread across her face as she buried it in his shoulder.

For a while, Remus stroked her hair and pressed the odd kiss to her forehead and temple, but then his hand drifted down to her waist where he slipped it under the hem of her pyjama top to trace filigree patterns across her lower back, then followed the path of her spine to her shoulder blades. He felt her breath quicken against his neck; every so often she inhaled sharply and her body arched towards him as her hand clutched at his t-shirt. He loved that he could do that to her and each response to his touch made him want to touch her more, to tease out more vocal responses, to see if he could push her over the edge...

He rolled her onto her back and looked at her for a moment, searching her face for a hint of doubt or reluctance about what he was doing, but he found only a slightly dazed expression and a little smile playing at the corners of her mouth that clearly said she was very pleased for him to carry on. Thus assured, he once again slipped his fingers under her top until his hand rested on her tummy, smooth and firm, then he bent his head to kiss her lips for the first time that morning. They were soft and yielding as he moved across them in a kiss so slow that he felt as though he was melting into her, or she into him. When she opened her mouth and the warm wetness of her tongue met and slid against his, Remus felt himself slip way into a world in which nothing existed beyond the covers that shielded them from the cool of the early summer morning.

Tonks gasped when his thumb brushed the underside of her breast, her breath sending shivers down Remus' spine. Her head fell back to the pillow, leaving Remus' mouth to forge a path down her chin to her neck, tasting her skin as he went. Her hands at his back made their way under his t-shirt, pulling him closer against her. It wasn't long before his fingers made their way down to the hem of her top, this time with the intention of pulling it off. But before he did so, he met her eyes in question. At her affirmative nod, Remus wasted no time in helping her to sit up so he could pull the garment from her body, letting his fingers trail across her bare skin as he did so. Even as he was dropping the top over the side of the bed, Tonks' moved to remove his own top, and with those layers between them gone -- abandoned on the floor, they sank back onto the bed together.

In relationships past, awkwardness and guilt, overshadowed by a relentless doubt that pervaded every thought, had precluded intimacy on this level. But this was..._beyond anything_...a realisation of so many dreams, and even if it seemed, in academic terms, somewhat premature to be thinking of it as an experience or forward step in his existence that fell into the category of life-changing, that was exactly how it felt, even as he lived it.

He could touch Tonks with confidence because he trusted her to say if it became too much. So he lowered his mouth to her breast, pulled her nipple into his mouth with lips and tongue, savouring each move she made in response, every sound. He felt sure and safe in entrusting his heart to her, and their eyes met often, unguarded, as they learnt each other in this new way.

And indeed, these explorations were, entirely, mutual. The pleasure evoked by Tonks' touch was mingled with wonderment that he was wanted by someone as amazing as her; that she could be so evidently delighted to run her fingers through his hair, to rub her cheek against the stubble on his, to taste the hollows of his collarbones and throat as if they contained something sweet and delicious; that she, inexperienced as he and in full knowledge of what he was, would be so bold as to sweep her hands down to his hips, exposed by his low-slung pyjama bottoms, to let her index finger trace the trail of hair from his navel down beneath his shorts, tugging, slightly, at the waistband, which made him suck in his stomach as a thrill coursed up from the place on his skin where her finger rested.

Her kisses last night had been enough to affect him as they did now, and of course with their legs tangled and their bodies pressed tightly together, she could have been in no doubt of it. Then, she'd made no move to encourage anything further, and he'd been equally content to ease into this shift in their relationship, to savour her lips and tongue and the tantalizing contours of her body through her clothes. Now, though, she was ready for more, for all of him -- he read it in the eagerness and certainty he found in her expressive dark eyes, the mirrors into her very soul, and it compelled him to divest himself of the rest of his clothing.

As he shimmied out of his boxers, Tonks, flinging off her own pyjama bottoms, moved to peel off her underwear.

"Wait," said Remus, impulsively. "May I?"

Tonks flushed as she lay back against the crisp white bed linens, but her smile was one of being absolutely pleased by his request.

"I'm all yours," she said, and, naked, Remus stretched himself out beside her, his lips pressed to her shoulder as he skimmed his fingers over the bright pink cotton of her knickers, watching her eyes glaze and her lower lip catch between her teeth as he explored her secret places through the thin cotton, loving that he could make her feel these sensations, bring her this physical pleasure.

During the night she'd told him that she'd never been with anyone before, not for lack of opportunity, but for wanting to save this special act of intimacy for the right person. No one had ever felt right to her, she'd told him, and he'd scarcely believed that look in her eyes could mean _he_ was the right person. But now, as she breathed his name and covered his hand with hers, guiding his fingers up to the narrow bikini-cut top of her knickers, he believed it; though he hesitated at the enormity of this, the fortune that had, for once, deigned to favour him, her other hand touched him in such a way that rendered him powerless to do anything but remove her knickers and position his body over hers.

Holding his weight off her, he placed his hand in the warm V between her legs and closed his eyes and remembered the contraceptive charm he'd committed to heart so many years ago at Sirius' insistence, though Remus himself had scarcely harboured the hope that he'd ever be lucky enough to have the opportunity to utter it.

As he opened his mouth to speak the words, his eyes snapped open.

"The mission!"

Tonks blinked at him. "It doesn't say no sex."

"No, but it says no magic. I almost performed a contraceptive charm."

"Oh!"

For a moment they stared at each other, asking each other with their eyes what they should do.

"Well," Tonks said at last, bucking her hips up against his hand and grinning mischievously, "I reckon we'll just have fun figuring out how to do it like Muggles."

Her grin seemed pushed away by her scrunched forehead. "Erm, do you know how Muggles do it?"

Remus dropped onto one elbow, running a hand through his hair. "Actually, I do." When she looked at him with an arched eyebrow that clearly said 'Do tell,' he quickly added, "Thanks to Sirius, who went out with a Muggle girl one summer. Mainly to wind up his parents. From all accounts, I'm not at all sure _fun_ really comes into it."

"Why? What do they do?"

Remus scratched his neck, wondering how he could be lying here, naked, with Tonks, and yet still feel embarrassed as he recalled that awkward teenage conversation.

"They've these things called condiments."

"Condiments?" Tonks' eyes were round with incredulity. "You mean like ketchup or relish?"

"No." Chuckling, Remus rested his hand on her pale, flat belly. "They're apparently these rubber things that go on..."

He found himself loath to continue -- the clinical nature of the topic was rather a mood-breaker -- but Tonks wasn't following him. "Go on what?"

"Erm...the man."

"Oh." Tonks looked away, her hair spreading out on the pillow. "I don't really like the sound of rubber. Makes it seem a bit impersonal, doesn't it? Like putting gloves on to touch each other."

"Quite. And talking of condiments, I don't _relish_ the idea of poking about in some chap's drawers for his contraceptives."

Tonks wrinkled her nose. "Merlin knows what we might find."

Remus was glad Tonks was following his line of thought and didn't seem to be in favour of hunting for Muggle sex toys, but he sighed heavily. "This doesn't exactly solve our dilemma."

Turning her face to him again, Tonks said, "Of course it does."

"Oh?"

"What's losing another few points when we've already lost so many?" She slid her fingers into his hair and pulled his head down so she could say huskily in his ear, "I've wanted you for a long time, Remus Lupin, and I'll be damned if we don't do this properly."

Remus didn't lose a second replacing his hand over her. Again he was interrupted before he could get out the words, this time by Tonks.

"You do a wandless Contraceptive Charm? Very smooth."

Unable to help himself grinning widely with pride -- he'd worked especially hard to do so, after Sirius' accounts of how terribly awkward it was messing about with a wand when there were other wands mixed into the equation -- Remus said, "I always thought the young lady would prefer I have my hands occupied with other things..."

He moved his fingers, and Tonks moaned. "Indeed."

Remus whispered the charm. And then, with nothing at all between them anymore, he stretched over her once more, and, after looking into her eyes for a long moment, he kissed her deeply and pressed into her.

She was trembling in his arms, breathing heavily, which matched completely his own demeanour.

"Okay?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," she said, her voice trailing off into a half-moan as he lowered his weight more completely onto her. "You?"

Remus inclined his head until her lips just touched his. "Never more so."

He pressed his lips into hers, hard at first, but then softening as he kissed her again, pulling her bottom lip into his mouth as her hips rose slightly beneath him and he pushed his down against her. The sounds that echoed between them at this simple movement electrified him. She felt amazing around him, so warm, and Remus found it hard to believe that it was him, them, sharing this thing he'd always imagined would be so terrifying in such a natural-feeling way. He was truly at home with Tonks and that they made this discovery for the first time, together, was made of the stuff of dreams.

Remus pulled back slightly to look at Tonks, to commit to memory everything he could about the moment. She was beautifully flushed, the healthy red of her cheeks spilling down her neck and across her chest. Her dark eyes flashed with impossible brightness; that they might shine so for him was incredible to Remus. Her small, delicate fingers reached up to touch his face, and he leaned into her touch, darting his tongue out to catch the fleshy part of her thumb when it brushed across the corner of his mouth, and kissed it.

Anticipation was, by that point, boiling in his blood, the intense pleasure that pulsed low in his body having lit a fire that burned for more. Slowly and carefully, Remus drew his hips back, and they both vocalized the sensations the movement evoked. There were a few stops and starts as they tried to move faster, but it wasn't long before they found their rhythm. Though Remus was aware that this experience was entirely new for the both of them, there was no sense of awkwardness or of holding back as he'd imagined there might be on the few occasions he'd allowed himself to think about doing this, both with an as-yet unknown woman and, more recently, with Tonks herself. He'd always thought he'd be too shy, too unsure, to fully commit, but in the here and now, he found he was no such thing, not only because he felt so completely comfortable with Tonks, but because he was acutely aware that it was so very new for her, too, and with that came a responsibility to make the best of it for her. And so he gave her everything. His hands curved over her breasts; his tongue played on her neck, traced her ears; he ran his hands over her thighs, his thumb curling round to the inside, just brushing the place where their bodies joined.

Amid so many sensations and emotions, Remus found himself captivated by the way Tonks moved beneath him, her responses to his touch, both in sound and movement. When she came, crying out, her body arching and her hands gripping his back, Remus let himself go and in turn, pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair with a sound so deep and guttural it seemed to originate from somewhere outside his body.

They shared snatched breaths, pounding heartbeats, flushed skin, and glazed eyes in the moments of stillness that followed, taking it in turns to press kisses to each others' faces, to whisper words like 'oh' and 'wow' before finally they pulled apart and rolled into a side-by-side embrace.

Remus kissed her long and deep, his body still humming and tingling all over as Tonks ran her fingers through his hair, over his back and shoulders, before, at length, they lay completely still. With her face buried in his chest, her slight body wrapped protectively in his arms and the memory of what they'd just shared forever ingrained upon his soul, Remus wondered how it was possible for a person to feel so much and not explode from the force of it all.

"I..." he said, before he'd really given thought to what he wanted to say.

Her face lovely, awash in the afterglow of their love-making, Tonks looked up at him expectantly.

He really wanted to tell her that he loved her, because he was fairly sure that he did, but it was so soon. Just yesterday she'd been a colleague upon whom he had what he'd thought to be a slightly inappropriate crush; today they'd lost their virginity together, and not just because they'd got carried away, lost in a moment -- though he supposed that, technically, they had -- but because it had been something he'd _wanted_, with her, more than anything. And he was fairly certain the same had been true for her. But to tell her he loved her...Surely it was too soon for that?

Finally, after a deep breath, he settled on the less committal, "I could fall in love with you, you know."

She closed her eyes, briefly, an Remus fancied the expression on her face was one of savouring the moment, but when they opened again, it was to flash with mischief, and she said, "_Could_?"

"Will fall -- am falling," he corrected, finding, then, that though he wanted to give them both a little time to get used to this giant change in their lives, he could not bear to leave her in any doubt of his sincerity.

She searched his face for what seemed like an age. "Me too," she said, eventually, and they kissed again. For some time they were both lost again in the gentle teasing of lips and tongue and caressing hands, until a stomach -- Remus couldn't be sure whose, with their bodies pressed together as they were -- gurgled.

Somehow, even this interruption and its reminder of basic human existence hardly broke the romantic mood. Indeed, there was something intimate about a stomach growling. They'd shared a meal together last night, but waking together, sharing the first pangs of hunger...well, it was yet another thing Remus had never experienced before. Hunger, certainly; but never till now accompanied by the pleasant promise of Tonks' smiling face across the breakfast table.

"One of us wants breakfast," he said, starting to roll from his position over her -- but Tonks held on to his shoulders and kissed him.

"I'd rather stay here, and keep falling in love."

Remus was so touched, of course, that he could only respond in kind, and might well have taken up that enticing suggestion if not for the insistence of his -- this time indisputably -- stomach.

"How about a compromise?" he asked, and, pressing his lips once more to hers, sat up and found his discarded underpants and pyjama bottoms from the tangle of sheets and duvet at the foot of the bed.

Tonks sighed dramatically, but sat up, pulling the thin white sheet up over her breasts, concealing her skin, but not the perky bumps of her nipples, and gazed at him with her head cocked in a characteristically quizzical manner.

"Why don't I go down and make us tea and toast, and we'll have breakfast in bed?" he suggested, for they -- mainly he -- had finished off their pizza the night before.

"What's the matter, Lupin? Don't trust me to work the Muggle bread toasting box thingy?"

"I think it's simply called a toaster." The bed squeaked as Remus got up and stepped into his pyjamas. "And I wish you wouldn't call me Lupin after we've just made love."

"You've been calling me Tonks."

Remus gawped. "But you won't _let_ me call you--"

"Don't even _think_ about it--"

"What'll you do? Hex me to oblivion and lose us even more points?"

"That reminds me." Tonks' face abruptly drew up into a mask of earnest perfectionism. "How much damage _did_ we do with that impressive bit of wandless magic you did?"

"You encouraged me," said Remus. So piqued was his curiosity by the question that, without thinking, he started to Summon their score sheet. Tonks stopped him in the nick of time, and half a minute later he'd bounded downstairs and then trudged back up again, clutching a stubbed toe and their parchment. And apparently a look that said they'd lost an alarming number of points, as well, given the way Tonks went white and clutched the sheet tightly between her breasts, closing her eyes, muttering something that sounded a lot like 'shit' and falling back against the pillows.

"It's not the points," said Remus, coming to sit at the edge of the bed, "so much as this."

Under the "Other Penalties" heading, in red capital letters, was the phrase: '_IMPEDO PROGENIES_ USED - 7:26 A.M.'

"Oh God," Tonks groaned into her pillow. "That's not how I imagined the Order finding out about us. Down to the bloody _minute_..."

"The _Order_ won't," Remus reassured her, laying a hand on her shoulder, though his thoughts matched hers. "Only Sirius."

"_Only_." Tonks' tone was laced with cynicism.

This was very true. They would pay dearly for him to edit their score sheet before it was handed over to Moody, as he'd done for the others who'd got themselves into (not quite so) embarrassing predicaments. But buying his silence would be a much more tricky task -- Sirius had many good qualities, but holding his tongue on a meaty piece of gossip was not among them.

Still, Remus couldn't help grinning in the face of his certain torment.

"Of all the things Sirius has teased me about over the years -- and believe me, I've been subjected to a great deal more than your average man -- I'd accept none so willingly as being teased because I really and truly slept with you."

Tonks looked up at him with a smile and something of the afterglow of what they'd done here making her heart-shaped face so very lovely to him. She wouldn't mind so very much, either, and that made Remus want to love her again.

Before he could, however, Tonks sat up and snatched the list from him.

"The names will be changed to protect the innocent," Tonks said. "But we'll lose the points all the same. What have we got left to reclaim some shred of dignity?"

_**To be continued...**_

* * *

_**A/N: Those kind enough to leave a review will get a wakeup call from Remus**_


	6. Part Five

**Part Five**

It was, Tonks discovered, decidedly tricky to dry one's own hair without the aid of magic, and, even more specifically, without using her own brand of magic to cheat her way through the whole process. A brush in one hand and a hair dryer in the other, she'd been struggling for the last five minutes or so. In that time, she'd managed to drop the hairdryer no less than six times, and for one hairy moment, had managed to tangle the brush in her short locks.

She wasn't quite certain of the merits of this exercise as far as the Order was concerned; she couldn't imagine an espionage or battle scenario when hair dryer wielding skills might come in handy -- though she might concede that if Snape weren't on their side, it might come in handy as an implement of torture or threat. But other than that, she thought any curtailment on the use of her abilities was a bit of a waste of time. It wasn't like they'd ever not be at her disposal; they were part of her.

Prepared to give the task one last go before she gave up in favour of letting her hair dry naturally, Tonks looked up into the dressing table mirror to find the image of Remus standing behind her. He was was watching her from the adjoining bathroom, leaning casually against the door frame. He'd put on a pair of boxer shorts and a white t shirt, and _his_ hair, too, was still wet from the shower they'd taken together. But where Tonks fancied she took on the appearance of a drowned rat when her hair was wet, Remus wore it very well, indeed. In fact, she wondered if she'd ever seen a man look sexier than Remus did in his mirror image.

"Having trouble?" he asked.

Tonks watched the reflection as he pushed away from the door frame and ambled toward her, his eyes shifting between meeting hers in the mirror and a point just a bit lower; she blushed when she realised he was looking at the reflection of her chest, of which her loosely tied dressing gown would be affording him a more than generous view, but she made no move to cover herself up.

"Erm, sort of. I'm not exactly practiced in the art of hairdressing, Muggle style." She waved the hairbrush and dryer for emphasis.

"No, I imagine you're pretty used to Tonks style in that department."

"Well, yeah," she replied. "I mean, I rarely even use a hairbrush, let alone trying to manage a dryer as well."

"Let me help?" Remus didn't wait for her answer before taking the blow dryer from her right hand and the brush from her left, which he placed on the dressing table before her as the dryer roared to life.

His fingers slipped through her hair again and again -- deft and seemingly practiced at this. They'd managed to recoup a point for correct toaster usage and another for managing a shower head and faucet, both of which, Tonks privately thought, seemed to be rewards beyond the accomplishment, but she was quite sure Remus' skill here, in drying her hair, ought to be acknowledged with at least the number of points they'd lost when he performed the contraceptive charm. Of course, she was of the opinion that Remus' skill there was remarkable enough that it ought to go unpunished entirely, but such was the nature of their assignment.

The way his hands threaded through her hair as he directed the dryer left tingles running down her spine and brought into sharp relief the memory of what they'd done not less than an hour ago.

She could scarcely believe what had happened, on more than one level. There was, of course, a certain disbelief that she'd actually, _finally_, had sex, and that somehow the act had caused something profound to change within her. But more than that, she'd had sex with Remus -- Remus Lupin, for whom she'd harboured so much more than a fancy these last few months since joining the Order that she'd not even allowed herself to acknowledge it for fear of certain rejection, and who she'd been so worried wouldn't find her attractive with her natural, boring brown hair.

But here he was, drying her hair with a Muggle blow dryer after they'd taken a shower together following breakfast in bed and making love...And it almost felt like it was _because_ it was so very difficult to comprehend the enormity of it that she was taking it in stride as she was and allowing herself to lean back into Remus' body with a loud sigh, without thought to how she ought to behave or react.

"Still mulling over those crossword clues?" Remus asked, referring to the puzzle they'd begun over breakfast, and abandoned equally for its difficulty as for the more fascinating occupation of puzzling out the mysteries of one another's bodies.

She felt her skin flush beneath her dressing gown, and not due to the hot blast of air from the hairdryer. The images of her body twined with Remus' in bed, atop a Muggle newspaper, and of Remus' surprised face above hers at an unexpected _crack_, then their ensuing laughter at the realization that the sound had come from the pencil breaking beneath her as Remus pressed her into the mattress, gave way to the frustration that had built as they'd try to solve the clues together.

"I've never really loved crossword puzzles, you know," she said, meeting Remus' blue eyes in the mirror and blushing again as the sensual curve of his lips and a slight pinkness on his own face made her think he might have been viewing the same mental pictures as she. "But we Hufflepuffs have a vicious obsessive-compulsive streak--"

"I thought you were simply hard workers?"

"Nope, OCD, completely. I just can't give up once I've started one. Even though I know I couldn't possibly know enough to suss cryptic Muggle clues, my brain won't let it go. And anyway, we _can't_ let it go, or we'll have to go jogging."

She pulled a face, which Remus mirrored; their remaining assignments included their choice of Muggle morning activities: jogging 'round the neighbourhood or solving _The Times_ crossword. They'd opted for the latter, and had taken a shower together in good faith that they could complete it.

"I still think that one was hinting at something dirty."

Tonks got a blast of hot air in her face as she craned her neck to look back and up over her shoulder to see the real Remus. "_English peer about to hold probe into his stock_?" She snorted. "You've been hanging around Sirius too much. Only a randy male would read an innuendo into that."

Gently, Remus' fingers turned her head back around so he could dry her hair properly, but then his stubbly cheek scratched against hers as he leaned close to murmur in her ear; he hadn't got 'round to his Muggle dressing test yet, which was shaving like a Muggle. "I don't know if it's _Sirius_ I'd blame for my randiness today."

Though Tonks felt a quiver deep within, she smirked at Remus' reflection. "Just on other days?"

Remus kept his eyes turned up to hers as he dipped his head lower and dropped a kiss on her shoulder where her dressing gown had slipped off her shoulder. Sucking in her breath through her teeth, she glanced down and saw that her gown actually hadn't _slipped_. Rather, it was being pulled down. By Remus' fingers.

"What about the lot who _openly deplore taking of snow leopard from its lair_?" she asked shakily.

Straightening up, Remus rubbed the bridge of his nose between his long, thin fingers. "I should _know_ this. Animals are my thing."

"_Magical_ animals are your thing."

"No, actually," Remus said, "I was fascinated by Muggle animal books as a child, despite their not having moving pictures in. And during our travels for cures, my parents always made sure to include stops in at local zoos."

He'd become so engrossed in thought that he'd stopped drying her hair, the Muggle implement hung from one hand at his side as he as what could only be described as a slightly reminiscent smile overtook his face. The slight scattyness combined with a professorly tone, and Tonks struggled to stifle a giggle as she easily imagined him perched on the edge of a great desk, rattling out a lecture on Magical Creatures to a classroom of rapt third-years.

"I really ought to know this one," he insisted.

"Maybe it'll come to you in a bit," said Tonks, taking the hairdryer from his slackened hand and shutting it off. She laid it on the dressing table where she'd found it, then picked up a strange-looking electrical device with three round heads. "After you've shaved like a Muggle."

Remus snapped out of his professorial reverie and blinked at the Muggle shaver. His Adam's apple bobbed.

"Are you _certain_ that's what Muggle men use to shave?"

"Yup. I used to love to watch Grandpa shave. Once or twice he let me shave him."

"Brave of him," Remus muttered.

Tonks arched her eyebrow as she thrust the shaver at him. "I hope that wasn't a dig at my clumsiness?"

Remus flushed, and his eyes became round and imploring. "I only meant the device!"

Tonks was sceptical, but not offended. She didn't trust herself to shave, either; luckily -- for her legs and any men who felt them, she was a Metamorphmagus who didn't have to.

"Oh. Go on, then," she urged, pressing the shaver into Remus' hand. "We got two points for Hairdryer Mastery, thanks to you. Shaving will be a piece of Cauldron Cake." She added, "Where's your Gryffindor courage?"

"Not rooted in trust of a Muggle object that has not one, not two, but three spinning blades that look like they'd be of better use mincing potion ingredients than anywhere near my face," Remus replied. "In any case, I'm not quite finished here yet."

Looking at her hair in the mirror, Tonks was fairly sure it was about as dry as it was going to get, but it wasn't until a few minutes later, when even Remus hadn't been able to deny that not a drop of shower water remained in her hair, that he turned off the dryer and placed it on the dressing table. He did not, however, stop running his fingers through her hair, and went further to trail them softly across her shoulder and then knelt behind her to press little kisses to the skin he'd exposed earlier when he'd tugged at her gown.

Tonks had always known, of course, that to have a man touch her would feel nice, but she'd never have been able to guess at the full extent of the sensations it would cause: the tingling that radiated from an epicentre of lips or fingers, the yearning for more than each touch evoked with a slow buildup of tension inside her. Nor would she ever have been able to anticipate the strong sense of intimacy, of togetherness, particularly knowing that Remus had never touched another in this way, and what they did as lovers was, in every sense of meaning, theirs and only theirs.

She reached back and threaded a hand around Remus' neck, pulling him forward over her shoulder to kiss him. Images of what they'd shared earlier kept flashing through her mind -- that moment at the end when she'd clutched him to her, his arms beneath her binding her against him so tightly. Kissing him now, she wanted to experience that again.

"Remus," she said against his lips, "the sooner you shave, the sooner we can get back into bed and finish that crossword."

He kissed her once more. "That is perhaps the only compelling reason to do this. Though you're sure we can't skip straight to getting into bed?"

"Uh-huh." This time it was Tonks who initiated the kiss, but as she pulled back, she pushed Remus away, stood, and dragged him by his shirt into the bathroom.

"Sit," she said, flipping the toilet seat down. Meekly, Remus did so, amusement and reluctance mixed on his face.

"You're not going to do this for me, are you?" he asked, watching her take the can of shaving foam from the ledge and lather it up on her palms.

"I knew you were disparaging me earlier -- just because I trip over my own feet on occasion, doesn't mean I don't have an eye for detail and a steady hand." She began to dab thick, white foam onto Remus' cheeks.

"I mean nothing of the sort," he replied. "Only that I'd rather be at the handle end of the broomstick, so to speak, when allowing swirling blades next to my face for the first time."

"Thousands of Muggles do survive it every day, you know," Tonks said, more than a little amused at Remus' petulance over the matter.

"You haven't answered my question," he said, ignoring her teasing.

She finished pasting the foam over his face and neck, then held the device out to Remus. "Nope. Just thought I'd help with the part where I to paw you." He almost smiled, but then his eyes flickered down and he reached out to take the shaver from her. He really did look nervous. "Erm, would you mind waiting in the bedroom while I do this?"

"I won't laugh," Tonks said, a little wounded.

"I know." He squeezed her hand. "But when you're around it's very hard to look at anything else and I really ought to have my full attention the task. I promise I'll scream loudly if I'm losing too much blood, and you can swoop in and earn us a few more points for Muggle first aid."

"Okay. I'll go warm up the bed."

* * *

It was about ten minutes before Remus emerged from the bathroom, his neck a little red in places and looking a little pale, but his face nonetheless clean shaven and damp.

"Was it much of an ordeal?" Tonks said from her warmed spot beneath otherwise recently made bed.

"Very traumatic, but as you can see, I survived -- and without too much blood loss."

"Come here." Tonks pushed back the covers on the vacant side of the bed and patted the mattress. "You may have passed the Muggle test, but now you've got to pass the kissability test."

She was a little surprised at her own forwardness, but as Remus came eagerly to the bed, she was pleased with the results. He lay on his side, his hand resting in the curve of her waist and their feet tangled together as she trailed her fingertips along his smooth cheek. As they'd made love in the early morning light she'd loved the masculine prickle of his stubble as he kissed her lips, neck, breasts, but now she thought she'd never touched anything softer than his skin; the mingling tang of shaving cream and sweet aftershave infused themselves in the sheets and in her as she pressed her lips to his cheeks, chin, and throat.

His Adam's apple moved beneath her lips as he said in husky tones, "What do you think? Do I pass kissability?"

"Not sure yet. Need a bit more experimentation." She darted out her tongue to taste the hollow of his throat.

Remus made a low sound in his throat, but abruptly sat up. "Appealing as that is, I'm afraid it would lead to us occupying ourselves with other things than crossword puzzles. If we don't finish it, we'll be outside jogging, and if we don't do it soon, it'll be hot as blazes out there. Humid from last night's rain, too."

He was right, of course, but that didn't stop Tonks from heaving an overdramatic sigh as she pushed herself up beside him and retrieved _The Times_ and their pencil from the nightstand. At least Remus kept his arm around her and leant his head against hers, and as they mulled over the cryptic clues, he turned his head to kiss her temple from time to time, or simply to breathe in the scent of her shampoo.

It was beyond distracting. In fact, it almost became irritating, as her Hufflepuff brain became engaged in puzzling out the crossword and went to war with her hormones.

Just as Tonks was about to say either 'Bugger it, Remus, stop being so bloody affectionate so I can _concentrate_,' or 'bugger it, Remus, let's have sex again and then go jogging,' she had an epiphany.

"Oh, I'm such an idiot! Why didn't I see it before?" She snatched the broken stub of pencil from Remus and began to fill in the boxes.

_D-E-N-_

"Denounced?" Remus read, looking at her in scepticism. "What's denounced got to do with snow leop--_Oooh_! Yes, of course! A leopard's lair is called a den. And those who openly deplore something _denounce_ it. Another area of my expertise."

"Crap pun, though," said Tonks. "All right, just the one left. With bad puns in mind, I'm sure we can suss it in no time!"

But 'no time' was far from the truth. A quarter of an hour passed. Half an hour. Three quarters of an hour. Remus wasn't kissing her, and Tonks was getting a headache. At last, though she was loath to bring this wonderful time alone together to an end, she said, "Remus. I think we're going to have to give up on this for now."

"But I want to know the answer."

"So do I," she said, "believe me. But I've got a shift tonight. We can take it to Sirius, as he's brilliant at the cryptic crosswords, and besides..." She took the newspaper from him and nibbled his earlobe, smiling at the shiver she felt course down his spine as she pressed against him. "...if we go jogging, we'll need another shower, and you know what we can do in the shower?"

Remus lost no time in getting out of bed and opening the bureau to find jogging clothes.

_**To be continued...**_

* * *

_**A/N: If you're kind enough to review, Remus will pop around to help you with the Saturday crossword.**_


	7. Part Six

**Part Six**

There was a tentative knock on the bathroom door. "Remus?" came Tonks' even more tentative voice from the other side. "Are you ready to go?"

"I'm not going. I'm never coming out of this bathroom. Not in these clothes."

Was that a giggle he heard? If Tonks had laughed, her mood abruptly changed, because that was definitely a heavy sigh of frustration, followed by a gentle thump against the door. He pictured her leaning wearily against it. "Have you thought of an answer to that crossword clue?"

"No." He sounded petulant, even to his own ears.

"Then you've got to come out. We have to go jogging, and Muggles do it in these clothes."

Bugger. Remus looked miserably at his reflection in the full-length mirror hung crookedly on the back of the bathroom door. He looked so bloody _stupid_. Loose-fitting nylon trousers that were _shiny_, a hooded jumper two of him could have got inside and emblazoned with a word he was confident had to be gibberish (what the blazes did _Adidas_ mean?) and the most garish shoes -- trainers, Tonks called them -- black and grey and neon yellow, and at least three sizes too big for him. The Muggle clothes looked as ridiculous on him as Augusta Longbottom's dress, vulture hat, fox-fur scarf, and red handbag had looked on Severus. In fact, Remus was sure he could pass for somebody's boggart right now. Probably Tonks'. There was a reason, despite a total lack of athleticism, that he'd never gone out for the Gryffindor Quidditch team: he'd known he'd look like a berk in the uniform. If Padfoot could see him now, he'd laugh his arse off.

"Remus, just come _on_. I feel pretty silly in my little outfit, too, not to mention the fact that the trousers are so tight I've got the mother of all wedgies. The sooner we can get this jogging over with, the sooner we can get _out_ of these bloody clothes."

A few keywords in Tonks' speech caught Remus' attention: _little outfit, tight trousers_, and _we can get out of these clothes_. Curiosity piqued, he took a deep breath, opened the door, and peered around it, still keeping himself out of plain view.

At the sight of Tonks dressed to go jogging, Muggle-style, he found himself struggling to resist the impulse to give a more genuine wolf whistle than most men were capable of. He'd been prepared for the trousers that stopped just below her knees, revealing those shapely calves that had been wrapped around his waist as he made love to her and left nothing to his imagination of her shapely bum (and a highly VPL).

But she hadn't mentioned the fact that what was on top was little more than a bra.

Remus swallowed hard. How in the name of Merlin's sweaty socks (and he hoped the assignment sheet wouldn't read his thoughts and deduct points for Use of Magical Epithet) was he going to be able to concentrate on jogging when Tonks would be right beside him wearing _that_?

A titter, followed by a muffled snort, diverted his gaze from Tonks' chest to the hand clapped over her mouth and the laughing eyes above it. Remus raised an eyebrow at her.

"I thought you felt so silly in your _little outfit_ that you weren't going to make fun of mine?"

"I'm sorry, Remus," Tonks spluttered around peals of laughter as she removed her hand from her mouth. "But I don't feel quite _that_ silly!"

Glowering playfully, Remus swatted her lightly on her nylon-clad behind. "Outside with you now. You'll pay for laughing at me -- _Nymphadora_."

* * *

Once they'd set off, Remus took every opportunity to snatch a sideways glance at Tonks; the sight of her lean body clad in those skimpy running clothes was almost enough to distract him from his own ridiculous attire. As they set their pace, he tried to concentrate on the image of her breasts -- which had, so recently, been pressed against his chest, cupped in his palms -- bobbing up and down beneath the scratch of material she wore, and console himself with the hope that since they were in a neighbourhood that was exclusively Muggle, he was unlikely to meet with anyone with whom he -- or they -- were acquainted.

It was only after about five minutes on the go (though it felt like twice that long, three times, even), their feet pounding rhythmically against the tarmac, that another very real and rather problematic situation began to present itself. While Tonks quite happily jogging along, looking breezy and bright and as though she was actually rather enjoying herself, Remus was starting to feel weary: breathlessness was catching up with him, and he felt the acidic ache in his muscles he'd always associate with running for his life. The fact was, his very new, considerably younger girlfriend seemed to be in the peak of fitness -- no doubt a result of a strict regimen of training she was still required to fulfil as part of her work schedule -- while _he_, it could not be denied, was a middle aged werewolf with a reduced lung capacity and limbs no longer fit for strenuous exercise.

He attempted to measure his breaths, to draw them deep and even, but that only seemed to make matters worse. Breathlessness hadn't seemed to matter when it was shared, and you were collapsed on top of your new lover's body, but suddenly Remus felt it was something of which to be more embarrassed than his clothing.

"Remus," Tonks' said beside him, sounding quite unaffected by the exertion, "are you okay?"

"Fine," he puffed automatically. "It's just..." He took a deep breath. "Been-a-while."

She seemed to accept that, and they soldiered on until Remus took a particularly deep breath and a paroxysm of coughs overtook him. Looking sideways at him in obvious concern, Tonks ran straight into a lamppost.

To give her her due credit, she'd managed not to knock herself to the ground, but clutched her forehead with both palms and blinked heavily. The pains in his legs forgotten, but breathing heavily, Remus caught up to her and, with great concern, peeled her hands away from her head. A hefty bruise was already beginning to form in the middle of her head -- a goose egg in the making, if ever there was one.

"Ow," she whimpered, biting her lip. "Reckon I deserved that for laughing at your outfit?"

"Not at all. And I promise I didn't jinx you out of revenge." Remus ran his thumb lightly over the bump and then kissed it, allowing his lips to linger on her skin as he caught his breath. "Better?" he whispered.

"Yeah," she replied as her hands reached up to grasp at the baggy fabric of his jumper. Remus enfolded her in his arms and lowered his lips to hers. It was a soft kiss and it seemed to calm them both, but then it deepened slightly and Remus forgot that he was standing in the middle of a Muggle street; he forgot that he was wearing ridiculous clothes that looked even more ridiculous on his unathletic body.

It was a car honking its horn and a voice bellowing 'Get a room!' as the vehicle revved and roared past that brought them back to the surface of reality. Tonks giggled and took several steps back, stumbling as she stepped onto the downward curve of a driveway, and landing flat on her backside.

"Dora! Are you okay?" he cried.

To his relief, she laughed. "It's okay, I'm just falling in love."

Despite the fact that his heart had been thumping wildly during their run and had not yet slowed to its normal tempo, Remus was sure that the flip-flop it gave now was purely the result of Tonks returning the sentiment he'd uttered earlier, as they'd lain naked and tangled together in bed; he'd been breathless with a pounding heart then, too.

"Do you reckon we've jogged enough to complete that portion of our Muggle training?" Remus asked.

Tonks blinked as though adjusting to the sudden about turn in train of thought, then glanced backward over her shoulder in the direction they'd come. They were at least three blocks from the house. "I reckon so. But I'm okay if you want to keep on."

Now Remus blinked. Was she _joking_? He hadn't been fit to continue before she had her run-in with the lamp-post, and she knew it, as distraction at his trouble was the reason she was on the pavement now. Shaking his head, he held out his hands to her. "We should get you home and tend your forehead."

Tonks sucked in her breath through her teeth as Remus' fingers closed around her palms and started to tug her to her feet. Once she was upright, Remus released them, and uncurled her fingers, turning her palms outward. _He_ hissed in sympathy at the sight of torn skin surrounding deep red gashes; her hands were dusted with a fine, shimmering layer of gravel and dust.

"Dora! Why didn't you tell me you'd scraped your hands?"

"The bump on my head hurt so badly I didn't notice. Anyway, it's just grazed hands. Not a big deal." Her voice was pained, quavering slightly as if she were trying very hard not to let on how much the scrapes stung; but her lips twitched upward in a slight smile. "You called me Dora."

"Did I?" The affectionate nickname had slipped from Remus' lips without his having thought about it. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Tonks said. "I like it."

Remus brought her hands up to his lips and kissed them, very lightly, above her wounds. "Well, then, Dora -- shall we patch you up, and then act on that Muggle driver's very fine idea of getting a room?"

She grinned brightly. "Considering we're going to have to grovel before Sirius to remove the contraceptive charm from our score sheet, I think we'd definitely better make the most of it."

As she turned to head back the way they'd come, a bright patch of pink in the midst of her tight black jogging trousers evoked a laugh from Remus' tortured lungs.

"Um, Dora?"

She stopped in her tracks and looked back over her shoulder at him with a questioningly raised eyebrow.

"It seems we're going to have to learn to sew like Muggles, as well."

Tonks craned her neck to follow his eyes to her bum, where the ripped seam of her trousers revealed her underwear. "Oh, bloody buggering--" Her hand shot back to cover the hole. "Stop laughing, Remus!"

"There's your payback. But I'll happily keep you covered up on the walk home," he offered.

"How chivalrous," Tonks dead-panned, not releasing the seat of her trousers. "I'll thank you to just walk behind me and keep that mouth shut."

* * *

  
With Remus slightly behind her, ostensibly protecting her modesty, but hand in hand, they half jogged, half briskly walked the distance back to the Muggle house. Though her forehead still ached in palpable pulses, and Remus was clearly a little worse for wear for being somewhat out of shape, Tonks felt their unspoken decision to return with as much haste as possible lay in an eagerness for the shower they'd promised to each other earlier, as well as a slight guilt for cutting their run short. But it was mostly the thought of the shower and what they might do in it that powered Tonks home.

When they reached the house, Tonks held out her hand for the key, which Remus had stored safely in his zipped trouser pocket. While she stood on the step, fiddling with the lock, Remus moved to stand very close behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, and resting his chin on her shoulder. His arms still around her, they shuffled into the hallway and as the front door closed behind them, Tonks turned to face him.

"How's your head, soldier?"

"Hurts a bit," Tonks replied truthfully, letting her fingers drift up to his neck and play in the soft hair they found there.

Though concern was etched on his kindly features, Tonks noted a definite Marauderish twinkle in Remus' eyes when he said, "Reckon some hot water would do it a power of good. Those hands of yours, too. We need to get that grit out."

"Mm." She rolled forward onto her tiptoes as she stretched up to kiss him. She whispered against his lips, "Will you help me?"

In the bathroom, Tonks left Remus to adjust the faucet until the water was up to temperature, while she examined the lump on her head and wished she were allowed to morph away the sickly blue tinge around its edges. She quickly slipped out of the running trousers and was about to remove the top, when Remus appeared behind her in the mirror. He took her hands gently and moved them away to hang limply by her sides; his eyes flickered to hers in the mirror. She watched, fascinated, with quickening breath, as he removed her top, pulling it over her head and arms.

"You're so beautiful, Dora," he whispered in her ear.

His palms grazed her bare breasts as she leant back against him, wondering, once again, at the easy intimacy they'd cultivated in so short a time. She'd always thought she'd feel self-conscious in nakedness in front of a man, but the way Remus touched her, the way he looked at her, meant she couldn't help but believe the words he spoke, felt comfortable in her own skin -- more so than she'd ever felt without him.  
When watching him create the sensations he caused in her became almost too intense for her to stand, she turned her head upwards to kiss him, and he met her half way. During the minutes that ensued, they parted only so she could remove his top -- dissolving once more into giggles at how ridiculous on him it had been -- and then clambered awkwardly into the shower together.

Water fell as hot rain over them; she tasted it on his lips, felt it dripping over her closed eyelids as they kissed. His body was warm and slick beneath her fingers and palms, and the sounds he made -- they made -- reverberated in their private watery space.

Conventional magic might be off limits in this place, but they created it in other ways, and she thought that between them, they might be just as adept at this new brand of magic as they were at the art they'd practiced all their lives.

Remus' voice, low and guttural, reverberated in the tiled shower nook. "Think we can manage to make this work in here?"

Tonks had been kissing along his collarbone, lingering in the hollow of his throat, tasting the salt of his shower-slicked skin, but now she raised her head to look at him. "Are you implying something about my balance, Lupin?"

She couldn't maintain her expression of mock displeasure when Remus' blue eyes twinkled at her from between strands of wet fringe. His hands slid down beneath her bottom, squeezing and pulling her up against him as he pressed her back against the cold wall of the shower.

"After the recent display of my appalling lack of athleticism, I'm more worried about whether _I'm_ up to the necessary gymnastics."

Resting her hands on his shoulders, Tonks balanced on one leg and hooked the other around his hips. With a groan of pleasure at her movement (and maybe the slightest bit of effort, Tonks thought with a giggle), Remus hoisted her into his arms and she was holding her breath as he just started to enter her.

"Quite impress--_ow_!" The back of Tonks' head had connected with the shower head. And then her feet thunked against the floor of the shower, nearly slipping out from under her when Remus dropped her in surprise.

Remus kept her upright as he apologized profusely. "Maybe we ought to relocate to the bed...If you even still want to do this now that I've nearly rendered you unconscious."

Tonks thought he might have been flushing, though it was hard to tell, as both their skin was undoubtedly pinkened by the hot water. He reached for the tap, but she placed his hand over his, stopping his movement to shut it off.

"Just avoid the shower head," she told him, "and I'll pretend that never happened and be duly impressed by your show of manly strength."

This time, Remus managed to lift her without incident. He slipped easily into her, and with her legs wrapped securely around his waist, Tonks felt quite comfortably filled by him as the soothing water drummed down on them. For a moment they stared at each other, revelling once again in the very idea of their bodies joined together in so very intimate away.

But of course, there was more to the act of love than this, and Tonks found that as satisfying as it was to be still with Remus inside her, she quivered with need of him.

And she wasn't exactly sure how it was going to work.

Brushing his wet hair out of his face, Tonks tentatively pushed her heels into the small of his back, coaxing an indrawn breath from him. That wasn't quite going to do it.

"What now," she asked?

Remus her cheek and murmured, "Hang on."

Tonks clung to his back, one hand fisting in his tangled wet hair, one of his arms released her and their bodies shifted at an angle as he supported himself with one hand on the shower wall above her head.

He pushed deeper into her, and Tonks' eyes closed as she hummed low in her throat at the sensation.

"Feel good?" Remus asked, rocking his hips against her again.

Tonks could only wag her head lazily against his shoulder as pleasure rippled through her.

"Good," said Remus, in such a way that Tonks wasn't sure whether he was pleased for her, or in agreement with her. "Although now that I'm more confident in my balance, I'm less sure of my endurance..."

"Shower sex isn't an endurance sport."

Remus' chuckle rumbled delightfully through Tonks as their bodies touched. "Well, in that case..."

It wasn't sure and practiced by any stretch of the imagination, but they clung to each other desperately, for more than simply balance or support, and sensation set to overwhelm her, nonetheless. Tonks found herself very aware, once again, of sharing with Remus a very intimate path of discovery and that she felt so comfortable in doing so seemed to reinforce the deep-seated sense of rightness she felt with him.

They didn't last long, the shower of water around them muffled the sounds as they made desperate movements together. Remus relaxed his hold on her and Tonks slid down to support her own weight once more. They held each other loosely; Tonks rested her head against Remus' chest and he buried his face in her neck, the sound of his breath rushing in her ear.

Eventually, Remus looked up, brushed her wet hair back from her face with both hands, and said, "I think we're getting to be pretty good at that."

"Think so"

They kissed softly, and Remus wrapped his arms around her once more, pulling her to him. His skin was so warm and soft, and in his arms she really did feel at home with a sense of calm and wellbeing; but as the minutes rolled by, unmarked by anything but the steady curtain of water falling around then and heartbeats against heartbeats, Tonks found a certain amount of unease creeping in. Soon they would have to get out of the shower and pack up their things, tidy and clean away all trace of their presence, and then their mission would be over. The moment they would have to return to Grimmauld Place, to both ridicule and normality, could only be put off for so much longer; the moment the bubble burst on their private Muggle world would be all too soon in the coming.

Eventually, Remus said, "I am loath to suggest it, but we probably ought to think about getting out and drying off."

Tonks made a vague noise of protest and held him closer.

"I don't want to either, but I don't think it'll be easier to get out the longer we leave it, and if we're not careful, we'll cost the Dursleys the water they need to win next year's All England competition." His hands slid easily down her back and over her bottom, pulling her closer still.

"You're not convincing me," Tonks mumbled into his chest, then raised her chin and meeting his gaze, which she found dizzying, with one of her own that felt every bit as intense as his.

It was, in the end, a good deal later when they finally emerged from the shower, pruney-fingered and a little breathless, but definitely clean.

_**To be continued...**_

* * *

_**A/N: As Remus will no doubt be a little sore after his jog, reviewers will get the opportunity to give him a soothing massage. Who knows, he may even return the favor... ;)**_


	8. Part Seven

**Part Seven**

As reluctant as they had been to get out of the shower, Remus and Tonks were even more loath to go into number twelve, Grimmauld Place to face the music. At the door, Remus took out his wand, but he didn't touch the tip to the peeling black paint to undo the myriad locks, bolts, chains, and charms. Instead, he contemplated the wand, which had been ever at the ready for nearly twenty-five years.

It was the wand -- oak, ten inches, griffin feather core -- that had chosen him at Ollivander's and filled him with a rush of hope that he could be a normal boy, maybe even a great _wizard_, after all, despite being a werewolf. After long nights spent in the body of a monster, nothing did what holding this wand could do in making him feel like a real human wizard again.

And yet, after only twenty-four hours without magic, his wand felt strange in his hand, his fingers not quite fitting into the slight grooves they'd worn into the handle over the years. It felt like he was holding some other wizard's wand. Like he wasn't a wizard at all, and didn't have the faintest idea what to do with it.

Or, rather, didn't have the faintest _desire_ to do anything with it.

Somehow, a spell had been cast while he and Tonks had lived as Muggles, which, the moment he evoked magic, would be broken. How was that for irony? It was like a fairy tale turned all topsy-turvy.

Well -- Remus smiled as Dora's arms encircled him from behind -- not broken just yet. How had she been Tonks to him only yesterday? Un-morphed in his arms, she'd been transformed into Dora, _his_ Dora. Or perhaps he'd simply discovered that she'd always been Dora to him.

But would she continue to be? Would she revert to Tonks once they stepped through the door to Order headquarters? Would time allowed them only the relationship of comrades-at-arms? She rested her cheek against his back, and he marvelled at how perfectly she fitted between his shoulder blades, how his hands completely covered her smaller ones when he placed them atop hers resting on his stomach.

Her breath tickled the back of his neck. "I thought you were a Gryffindor."

"I am..."

Though his back was to her, Remus could see her teasing smile, the glitter in her eyes, and grinned in anticipation of her joke as he would have if he were looking at her.

"Apparently the courage doesn't extend to facing up to old friends who know what personal spells you cast last night?"

"If there's one thing in life I'm as accustomed to as turning into a wolf every full moon, it's having Sirius know far more about my personal life than I'd like. And anyway, it was only this morning I cast that charm."

It hadn't dawned on Remus till then that it was this very day, a mere handful of hours ago, that he'd become intimate with Dora. It felt like so much longer, as if they'd been ensconced from the magical world for a week, at least, but in actuality their time of discovery had been so very short. They'd talked of falling in love; but had it been enough time for love to take root, to grow, and to thrive and endure the drought that would surely come once they returned to business as usual in the Order?

Filled with sudden urgency, Remus turned to Tonks and held her face in his hands, letting his fingers slide into her soft hair, which she'd morphed pink the moment they'd left the Muggle house and their mission had ended.

"I'm just not ready to go in yet."

"Nor am I," Tonks concurred. "I'm not ready for this to end."

_To end_. What did it mean that she'd put it like that? Remus couldn't let it mean what he feared.

He leaned in and kissed Tonks deeply, slowly, letting his tongue glide lingeringly along hers, tracing each warm contour of her mouth and lips. Her fingers caressed his neck, raked through his hair spilling over the collar of his shirt. Without words, she confirmed what she'd spoken aloud, asked him to do the same.

Remus drew back. "Dora..." He moistened his suddenly dry lips with his tongue, drew a long breath in a futile attempt to still his pounding heart. He could barely hear himself for the rush of blood in his ears. "There's something I want to--"

"Well, well, well."

They turned to see the door open and Sirius stood in the gap, leaning casually against the jamb and looking exactly like the fifteen year-old who'd caught the prefect snogging in a broom cupboard.

"If it isn't the lovebirds. I have to say I'm surprised you failed that part of the training, Moony. Not that I thought even you'd have the self-control to keep your paws off the lovely Nympha--"

"Don't call me Nympha--"

"Dora, steady on," Remus said quietly, raising a hand between her wand and Sirius. "We already owe him quite enough without hexing him, as well."

"Yes," said Sirius, "you do. Not least, that bottle of Ogdens. And to think, it could have all been spared if only you'd remembered that useful little lesson I gave you all those years ago on Muggle contraception." His superior look fell into heavy lines of perplexity etched across his aristocratic brow. "Erm...what were those rubber things called again?"

"Condiments, I believe you said," Remus replied. "Although the accuracy of that is debatable, given how hung over you were when you related your Muggle sexcapades."

"Speaking of which, we need to talk," Tonks said, "Mad Eye will be here any minute, and I don't want him to find us up here talking to Sirius, or that mark on our score sheet. He would find that consistently unvigilant."

Sirius grunted his assent and stepped back from the door to admit them; Remus, his hand resting in a warm spot on Tonks' back, stepped into the house with mixed feelings: a slight lessening of tension from stepping into more private surroundings, and an urge to grab Tonks and flee its confines once more.

"So," Tonks said, the moment they entered the kitchen, "what'll it be to alter our score sheet?"

"You say it as though my corruptibility is beyond doubt, cousin." Sirius lowered himself dramatically into a chair and flung his legs up on another. "Clearly yours is -- or was Moony the victim of seduction in this tawdry affair?"

Remus bristled to hear the words 'seduction, 'tawdry' and 'affair' in relation to what he and Tonks had shared, but thought it prudent to keep quiet.

Tonks, too, wisely ignored Sirius' bait. "Of course it is. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave you and Remus to sort out the particulars. My shift starts in less than an hour. I just came by to get that file I need to return to the Ministry." She was searching through a pile of paperwork that Remus thought had become somewhat more of a mountain in their short absence.

"That's very disobliging of you. I've been fit to burst since..." He leaned over to check the incriminating length of parchment that sat on the table beside him. "Seven twenty-six this morning. Suffering, I have been, and you don't have the grace to stay and let me have my fun? You and old Moony have clearly had yours."

"Grace is not something I'm known for," she replied, returning to Remus' side having found the file she was after; her fingers curled loosely around his. "But if I did have the time to spare any, it would be to save Remus the pain of having to suffer your foolery alone." There was a curt note of warning in her voice that Remus suspected would be noted by Sirius, but not heeded.

Suddenly desperate to extricate Tonks from the situation, Remus said to her, "You'd better go -- I'll walk you out." She nodded her agreement, waved a swift goodbye to Sirius, and they turned to make their way back up the stairs.

Back up in the grim old hallway, Remus opened his arms and Tonks stepped into his folded embrace; her head fell to his chest he rested his against it. The idea of parting with her now, to say goodbye and not know when he might see her again -- to not see her again that day, even, suddenly seemed like too cruel a punishment to bear.

Without even giving himself the chance to think twice about it, he blurted, "I want to see you later."

His heart skipped a beat at the unexpected force of his words, but Tonks assented so quickly that it skipped again with excitement. Of course, he had no option but to kiss her enthusiastically and she responded no less ardently.

Eventually, they pulled away and Tonks buried her face once more in his chest. "I hope he's not too awful," she said into his jumper after a few long moments.

"I'm sure it won't be worse than anything I've had from him before. Anyway, I can certainly put up with it given that it's the result of a circumstance that's made me very happy..." He grinned wider at her blush, and her eyes peering knowingly at him from beneath her lashes. "...but I'll do my best to extract a promise that he'll go easy on you when we make whatever ridiculous deal he's going to come up with. Have you got that Muggle crossword on you? The clue that eluded us should distract him for a while."

As it happened, Sirius' deal was quite the opposite of any number of horrors Remus' mind supplied him with in the short time he'd had to really worry about it. Perhaps there'd been something in his face when he returned to the kitchen -- he certainly felt dreamy and rather wobbly on the insides; or maybe Sirius had taken Tonks' earlier words rather more to heart than Remus would have given him credit for. Whatever it was, on his return to the basement for the expected grilling, Remus found Sirius looking at him with a puzzled expression on a cocked head and a knowing smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"You love her, don't you?"

Remus considered brushing him off, denying it, but on second thought, why should he? And it was so far from something to be embarrassed about that he met his old friend's searching gaze directly, with a broad smile and said, "I do."

For an instant, he thought he glimpsed a shadow of wistfulness in the grey eyes, but the expression was quickly replaced by a familiar gleam as Sirius clapped him on the back. Remus felt a hitch in his chest. How he'd missed having a friend like Sirius, who always rejoiced in others' happiness as if it were his very own. How long it had been since been so truly happy? In fact, he'd never dared to imagine _he_ should be the recipient of the very same affectionate congratulations as Sirius had offered James on his wedding day.

His arm slung companionably about Remus' shoulders, as in the long-ago days of their boyhood, Sirius steered him back downstairs to the basement kitchen.

"Moony's in love, and someone's in love with Moony -- if this doesn't call for a drink, I don't know what does."

"I _think_ she loves me," Remus said, his grin unwavering even in the wake of this slight uncertainty; he thought back to jogging with Tonks, of her looking up at him from the ground, and joking, though quite earnestly, that she was falling in love.

But Sirius whirled around from the larder, Firewhisky bottle in hand, looking at Remus as if he were a class act failure. "What do you mean, you _think_ she loves you? Didn't she say?"

"Not in so--"

"Didn't _you_ say?"

"Not in so many words," Remus tried again, sheepishly, unable to meet Sirius' accusatory gaze. But his attention was jarred back to Sirius when his barking laugh rang out.

"My love life's not really a laughing matter," Remus began.

"I'm not laughing at your love life. I'm laughing maniacally at my own Marauder genius." He bounded over to the table, picked up the score sheet parchment, and vanished the Contraceptive Charm, which only partly relieved Remus, given the evil gleam in Sirius' eyes. "I know just what you're going to do to earn this."

* * *

Wrapped in a vivid pink towel, Tonks stepped out of the shower cubicle to find Remus at the sink, brushing his teeth. Last night they'd brushed their teeth together and she'd revelled in the easy intimacy of it, but there was something about seeing him doing it here, in her own space, that thrilled her even more. She grinned at him as he met her eyes in the mirror, and then laughed at the foamy grin he gave her in return.

She stepped up beside him and leant forward to examine her hair in the mirror, flipped the odd lock this way and that, and then grabbed her wand from the sink and pointed it at her hair, muttering, "_Sicco._" Her hair dried in an instant.

"Drying your hair by magic is a great deal more efficient than that Muggle contraption," said Remus, who had finished cleaning his teeth; his hands reached up to comb through her hair as they had this morning when he'd used the hair dryer on her, which, during her dull as dishwater evening shift, had been one of the more heavily replayed moments from their Muggle adventure.

"Doesn't have quite the same potential for romance, though, does it?" she replied, leaning into his touch, which was so evocative of the way she'd felt that morning.

"Muggles might have the more romantic hair drying solutions, but wizards definitely win in the contraceptive stakes."

"Oh!" she cried. "I can't believe I forgot to ask you: what happened with Sirius?"

"It's all sorted," Remus said evasively, dropping his hand away from her and turning back to the sink to wash his hands.

"Sorted? How?"

"You're off the hook, don't worry. There's something he wants me to do -- something Muggle to make up for the charm."

Tonks wasn't sure whether she ought to be worried or not; she trusted Remus, of course, but he was the type of man who would take something on himself to protect her. "Why won't you let me help?"

"There is one thing you can do once it's completed." He turned to her once more, drying his hands on a small towel; there was a hesitant, almost shy expression on his face.

"What's that?"

"You'll know once I've done it, I hope. I can't tell you more than that now."

Since she was a girl of a naturally curious disposition, Tonks didn't quite leave it at that, but Remus was firm in his insistence that he'd told her as much as he could and to say anymore might be to invalidate his agreement with Sirius, that she wasn't to worry, and he hoped she'd find the eventual outcome to her liking. She had to content herself with that, for now, and sent Remus ahead to the bedroom while she popped her pyjamas on.

If watching Remus go about his nightly routine in her small bathroom had been thrilling, it was nothing compared to seeing him propped up in her old but comfortable bed beneath the blue and gold duvet set that had long been a strong symbol of home for her. But she wondered how she could have thought home complete without him.

She lost no time in skipping over to her side of the bed and slipping beneath the covers. Remus sank down the mattress till his head rested on the pillow and rolled over to meet her, wrapping his arms around her. Tonks felt every muscle in her body relax as she sank into his embrace, let her head fall to his shoulder and buried her face in his neck. She slipped a knee between his thighs, and they lay still for a long time. His breathing was slow and deep and eventually, the tempo of hers matched it.

After they'd left the Muggle house earlier in the day and returned to Grimmauld, Tonks had worried that the magic they'd experienced during their time lone together would be broken once they returned to their normal lives. She'd spent her shift with her stomach taking dizzying, nervous somersaults in turn at the thought of things they'd done and said, and concern that it had all been the result of finding themselves out of their normal environment, away from the mundane and the routine. But it was not so. In returning home to find Remus waiting for her, a kiss ready for her lips; in sharing a late night supper of soup and bread at her small breakfast bar in the kitchen; in observing the ritual of bedtime preparation; in slipping into bed and finding warmth and welcoming arms, they were forging out their own routine on this new path that life had set them on together.

She loved that she could lie in bed, tilt her head up and find warm lips to welcome hers; that beneath a soft cotton t-shirt, her hands could find a body receptive to her touch, and there were hands that touched her in return, sending sensation guttering straight to her heart. She was more at home than ever when she uttered the words 'good night' and felt them whispered on her cheek in reply as her eyes fluttered closed at the end of one day that had been pure magic, though they'd hardly uttered a charm or waved a wand at all.

* * *

_**A/N: With only one instalment to go, we thank you all for reading and taking the time to leave such lovely feedback. This time, those kind enough to review will get to have a drink with Sirius -- to Remus' and Tonks' relationship, of course!**_


	9. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

"Have you noticed," Tonks said, still breathing rapidly as Remus rolled away from her, his own sweat-dampened chest heaving, "that we've had sex four times now, and they've all been in the morning?"

Honestly, Remus had been so unaware of anything but Tonks herself and the way he felt when he was intimate with her, that they could have been making love on top of the Astronomy Tower at midnight with a meteor shower overhead and he'd have been as blissfully unaware of it as he had been of the gentle morning sunlight filtering hazily through Tonks' sheer gold curtains. There had been that distraction yesterday of the pencil cracking beneath them when they'd done it on top of _The Times _crossword puzzle, but even that incident had seemed suspended in time and space.

"We have, haven't we?" He pushed an errant lock of pink fringe out of Tonks' eyes and let his fingers slide through her hair as his thumb scuffed her cheek. "I suppose we'll have to vary things up, won't we? Try it this evening, when you get home from work. We could've done last night, I suppose, but I was a bit knackered from our Muggle weekend."

"Sure it wasn't from all the sex we had yesterday morning?" Features lit with delight, Tonks turned her head to capture his thumb in a kiss. "I wasn't complaining, you know. Just making an observation."

"Ah, but they say variety is the spice of a love life." Remus leaned in to rub his stubbled chin over her chest. "I can't have you getting bored with me already."

"Bored with you?" Tonks laughed. "We've tried shower sex already. Pretty spicy for only our third time ever. I don't think you're in any danger of boring me."

"Good to know," Remus murmured, raising his head just enough to brush his lips languidly across hers. "Could I persuade you to have another go at shower sex, then? We need to wash, anyway, and I'd like to prove that I can manage it without giving you a concussion by bashing you on the shower head."

Tonks' eyes glimmered impishly for just a moment before she cried, "I'll race you" and, with far too much energy for this hour of the morning, especially following drowsy morning sex, she vaulted from the bed, stumbling over the duvet which was half draped across the floor, and disappeared into the adjoining bathroom. Remus was still just pushing himself upright, with a groan, when he heard the screech of pipes through the thin wall, followed by the sudden hard spray of the shower, and then a knocking sound.

"Dora?" he called, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and curling his toes into the thick rug that covered the wooden floor. "You haven't done yourself another mischief, have you?"

"What?" Her face appeared around the doorjamb.

"That noise," Remus explained. "Did you bump into something?"

"No. What kind of noise?"

Before Remus could reply, the knocking sound repeated itself.

"Someone's at the door!" Tonks exclaimed.

She ducked into the bathroom, only to reappear half a second later tying her terrycloth dressing gown around her.

"COMING!" she bellowed, then, catching her toe on the bedroom doorframe, which made Remus wince in empathy, muttered on her way into the living room, "Who the hell's popping in at seven in the bloody morning? If it's work, interrupting my lovely shower sex, I'll hex them to bloody oblivion, I swear..."

Knowing exactly who it was, Remus, with a pounding heart, shimmied into his pyjamas, shut off the shower, and padded through the flat just as Tonks, constantly vigilant, shouted at the door:

"Who's there? Identify yourself!"

"Erm," came a voice from the other side of the door, no doubt bewildered by this form of greeting. "R-royal M-mail."

"Have you got your wand, Remus?" Tonks looked over her shoulder at him, brandishing her own. "This is an all Wizarding building, the Muggle postmen never come here. Could be a Death-Eater trap."

"It's not a trap."

"I've got a letter here for a Miss Nym...Nympha...Nymphydorrie Tonks," said the person outside the flat.

Tonks' eyebrows knit on Remus. "How do you _know_ it's not a trap?"

"Trust me," he said, not quite trusting himself at this moment for what he'd done, or Sirius for insisting he do it.

But Tonks opened the door, and a blue-uniformed Royal Mail officer with bulging eyes thrust a pink envelope at her. "I never been here before. Why haven't you got a mail slot? Why hasn't anyone got a bloody mail slot?"

"Normally owls deliver our post," Tonks replied absently, unaware of the mailman's eyes bulging further out of their sockets as she studied the address on the envelope. "Remus...why did you send me a letter by Muggle post?"

"What's Muggle?" repeated the postman. "And owls? Are you havin' me on, Miss?"

"No, she's not," Remus replied, pleasantly, patting the man on the shoulder. "Thanks for going out of the way of your normal rounds."

Before the postman could say another word, Remus shut the door in his face, leant against it, and faced Tonks. Shewas regarding him from beneath an arched eyebrow.

"Are you going to open it, then?" he asked.

"Why--?" she began, but Remus interrupted.

"You'll know why when you open it!"

"Okay, okay," said Tonks, tearing into the envelope. "I take it this is what Sirius put you up to? Only I don't see how sending me a letter via Muggle post offsets using a contraceptive charm. Honestly, I expected him to make us do it using one of those rubber things. Or is that what you've sent me--?"

Her hand flew to her mouth as she flipped the card open, and Remus' heart lodged considerably far north and west of where it was meant to reside in his chest as she read the few words he'd written.

It seemed a lifetime that she stood there, staring at the card in her hands. He might have worried that the delay in her response was down to her trying to work out how to let him down gently, were it not for the softness in her eyes and the lovely smile that graced her lips as she looked up, taking a step closer to him.

"You mean it?" she asked, breathlessly.

His own reply was soft. "Of course."

She stepped nearer still. "And this is what Sirius wanted you to do?"

" He asked me if I loved you, and I told him yes..." Remus' blood was rushing so in his ears that he could barely make out his own husky-voiced words as he continued. "Then he asked if the same was true for you, and I had to admit that I wasn't sure. From which he, being the quick-witted fellow that he is, deduced that I'd not made full and proper use of Gryffindor courage and told you."

"There's nothing particularly punishing in this," she said, indicating the card in her hand. A teasing glint had been growing in her eyes, and while Remus found it exceedingly alluring and attractive, he did think that her delay in making the obvious response he was hoping for, was, indeed, quite punishing enough.

"No, not especially," he replied, "but I think he found watching me pace for a good hour while I deliberated the best choice of words just as entertaining as watching me squirm under any other punishment he might have come up with."

Tonks giggled. "I can believe that."

"In any case, just every now and then, Sirius has been known put his own feelings aside and know when something is just a bit too serious to be made a joke of. I'm thankful to say that this was one of those rare occasions."

"You can tell him 'yes,'" Tonks said, her dark eyes, her expression, suddenly serious.

"Yes?"

"Yes, I do love you."

Throughout all that had happened over the last two-and-a-half days, Remus hadn't once paused to think about what it would mean to hear those words. Perhaps some part of his subconscious hadn't dared to push the boundaries of his luck in hope, or maybe he'd just been too busy worrying about her reaction to his admission -- that it would turn out to be too much too soon. It was as though time had stood still, slowed down, ceased to be a part of the universe. There were only Tonks' words, echoing through his mind in the sweetest chime imaginable, her upturned face, watching, waiting, with sincerity and, he thought, expectation -- a realisation that brought him to the conclusion that there was only one possible next step.

Well, maybe two, he corrected himself as he lowered his lips to hers after he'd whispered back to her. The kiss started soft and sweet, full of the weight of feeling from their declaration, and Remus was just beginning to think that there was a logical third step and had begun, as the heat rose between them, to steer them in the direction of the bedroom, when they both started at the sound of a sharp rapping at the living room window.

Grumbling, he extracted his hand from the inside of Tonks' dressing gown and pulled it back around her, then shambled over to the window to find one of the Order's larger owls sitting on the windowsill preening his brown and golden feathers in a manner Lily Evans had coined 'hooty' during one particularly uneventful prefects' patrol in their sixth year. The owl looked pointedly at a reasonably sized package he'd already unloaded on the wide window ledge outside and held his leg out for Remus to remove a letter that was tied on securely.

"Who's it from?" Tonks asked once Remus had told the owl he needed to fly back to Grimmauld for his treat because they had nothing for him, but thanks for making the trip.

"Sirius." Remus unravelled the parchment and read:

_Dear Remus and Tonks, (This feels like practice for many Christmas cards to come!)_

_I have no doubt that this morning's plans went, well, according to plan, and realise if that is the case, I've probably interrupted something by owl I hope I never have the misfortune to in person. However, I always say all good celebrations need a good bottle of bubbly to go with them, though knowing Remus as I do, he'll probably say it's a little early in the morning, but cousin, I recommend you to convince him that if only fools fall in love and if only fools drink champagne at nine o'clock in the morning, logic assumes it's all okay._

A snort from Tonks interrupted Remus' reading. "Sirius A. Black logic, he means."

Remus grinned. "Indeed, but I'm not one to complain about gifts of very fine champagne. We can save it to toast our first night-time sex."

Tonks looked very pleased, but her eyes danced with mischief. "Whatever you do, don't stick it in a Muggle freezer."

Remus tweaked her side. "Actually, I was going to recommend you keep well out the way of the cork, as you sustained so many head injuries during our stint as Muggles."

"Prat." She glared playfully, but allowed Remus to put his arm around her and tuck her comfortably under his arm as he resumed reading.

_Congratulations, you two, sincerely. But assume that after this soppy sentimentality on my part, taking the piss shall resume, as normal, bright and early on Monday morning. Which is tomorrow._

__

All taken care of with Mad-Eye, so don't worry your lovesick hearts about it and make the most of your day.

_Snuffles_

"Annoying as Sirius can be," Tonks said, "I don't think I'll mind him teasing me about being with you. This was so sweet of him."

Remus nodded, not quite in possession of his voice as he was struck by the enormity of this moment. To have the love of a woman like Tonks was the attainment of a dream he'd never allowed himself to have; to be able to share that joy with the best friend who'd been as good as dead to him for twelve years seemed even more impossible. As useful as spells and charms and potions were, none of that had ever filled him, made him happy and whole, as he felt now. _This_ was magic.

"What's that other paper?" Tonks asked, and Remus looked down as she prized Sirius' note and a second slip of parchment, torn around the edges, from his hands as Remus read his mate's post-script.

_P.S. Find enclosed one completed Muggle crossword. At first I thought "English peer about to hold probe into his stock" was innuendo of some sort, but then I sussed it. Never let it be forgot who was the cleverest Marauder._

"_Pedigree_?" Tonks read Sirius' scrawl -- in ink -- on the newspaper clipping.

Remus scratched his head. "I don't know how in Merlin's name that fits the clue, but it's perfect for Sirius, isn't it?"

"Yep." Tonks rolled up the parchment and crossword and tossed them onto the sofa. Turning to Remus, she slipped her arms around Remus' neck. "But I think _you're_ the cleverest Marauder -- even if you are the one who lost us most of our Muggle points."

She arched up on her toes, and as her lips brushed his, Remus said, "But I can do a wandless contraception charm. Doesn't that count for something?"

"Mm..." Tonks melted into his kiss. "I think that'll come in a lot more handy than all that Muggle training. Only don't tell Mad-Eye."

"No, that'll be our little secret. And Sirius'."

That thought should have troubled Remus, but he found, as he lost himself in kissing the woman he loved, that he quite agreed with her: he wouldn't at all mind being teased about being with Nymphadora Tonks.

_**The End**_

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_**A/N: Reviewers will get a hand-written thank you note from Remus for being so kind to follow this story and read such lovely feedback for the past month. **_

_**Many thanks to everyone who's followed the story and special thanks, from MrsTater and myself, to those who've been kind enough to let us know they've enjoyed it. **_


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